Whumptober 2019
by VoicesOffCamera
Summary: A collection of 31 whump prompts centered around Clint Barton.
1. Shaky Hands

**Author's Note:** Hello followers! I am alive! Apologies for the radio silence after my last project. It had been a rough couple months for me, so my brain hasn't been up for much writing lately. I'm trying to get back in to it though! I've been participating in the Whumptober Challenge on Tumblr, and thought I would share here as well, so you guys know I'm still alive! These are all short independent, unconnected one shots, and they may be a little rough, I'm just kind of writing and posting whatever comes out! Some are better than other, but hopefully you guys will enjoy!

I'm a couple days behind in the challenge because I started late, but I've currently got the first seven prompts finished which I will post throughout the day today, and I should hopefully have the eighth prompt done by the end of the day today too. After that there should hopefully (fingers crossed) be one chapter posted a day for the rest of October.

Here we go!

* * *

**Shaky Hands**

She wasn't sure why it was his hands that bothered her the most.

Clint Barton had always had clinically steady hands. In another lifetime and with a more stable and less traumatic childhood he may have grown up to be a skilled surgeon. Instead, they were hands that drew bows, aimed arrows, and killed with an almost inhuman accuracy. They were hands that Natasha Romanoff trusted with her life on every mission they were sent on.

It was the first thing that Natasha noticed, even before the deep gash in his side that his hands were pressed against in a futile attempt to stem the exorbitant bleeding. It was the big flashing sign just how dire the situation really was.

"N-Nat?"

Clint's hoarse, unsteady voice finally forcibly snapped Natasha out of her shock.

"We need emergency evac, now!" Natasha barked in to her comm. as she rushed forward and dropped to her knees next to where Clint knelt. Her hands immediately flew to Clint's, pressing his hands more firmly into his wound. Clint clenched his jaw as a groan clawed its way up his throat. "Easy, easy," she assured quietly. "It's okay, you're gonna be okay."

Clint heaved in several strained breaths. He slipped one hand out and placed it on top of Natasha's, gripping the back of her hand like a lifeline. The tension in his muscles as he held on to her steadied his trembling hands. At the sight, Natasha took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Suddenly, the blood coating their hands didn't matter, the unnaturally pale tint to his skin didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was those steady hands, assuring her that Clint was still in control.

It was going to be okay. It had to be.

Suddenly, Clint's free hand was moving. It shot forward, snatched the sidearm that was strapped to her hip, aimed and fired within the span of a breath. Natasha snapped her head around just in time to see the hostile who had been sneaking up behind her fall. Then her eyes drifted to Clint's blood covered hand, still pointing the gun to cover her six.

Clint's hand remained steady, his aim as reliable as ever through sheer force of will, despite the blood loss.

Natasha turned back to Clint, who was now smirking painfully at her just as the med evac Quinjet roared overhead.

"Gotta stay sharp, Romanoff," Clint rasped.

Natasha smiled. Oh yeah. He was going to be just fine.


	2. Explosion

**Author's**** Note:** Thank you **KayCee-616** and **GloriousPurpose12** who have both already reviewed! I very much appreciate it! :)

**Explosion**

"_Hawk, get outta there!"_

"Workin' on it!" Clint shouted into his comm. as he ran full out toward the door of the warehouse.

He never made it. Not even close.

Every sense was assaulted as the world was ripped apart around him. Everything was on fire, his eyes, his ears, his skin. His body was jerked violently one was before viciously being torn a different way and then back again. He was burning, he was drowning, he was being torn apart piece by piece. This was it, this was the end for him.

Just when he was sure that he couldn't take anymore, suddenly everything stopped.

"_Clint! CLINT! Can you hear me!? Answer me, damnit!" _

Clint coughed on the thick air around him. "Cap…?"

"_Clint," _Steve sighed in relief. "_Are you okay? _

"Wha…" Clint murmured as he struggled to blink his eyes open and take in his surroundings.

"_Stay where you are,"_ Steve commanded. "_We're coming to get you."_

Another heavy cough burned up Clint's throat as his vision finally cleared somewhat. His brain took another long minute to really start to comprehend what he was seeing. He was completely surrounded by large slabs of concrete, the large pieces shoved up against one another to create a small pocket of space where Clint lay. There was no more than a foot of space above his head, about six inches of space in front of him and a few inches to either side of him.

"Don' worry, not goin' anywhere," Clint mumbled as his stomach sunk down into his gut, the situation finally dawning on him.

He hadn't made it out of the warehouse before the planted bomb had gone off. The building had collapsed and buried him alive.

He took in a sharp, agonizing breath and shifted his head to dig his forehead into the rubble underneath him. The pressure on his chest intensified and he had to mechanically pull air into lungs that screamed at the action.

"_Stay calm, we're coming for you."_

Clint barely registered Steve's voice still in his ear. He couldn't help it, the math did itself. He had been on the main level of the warehouse. There had been two floors above him and two sublevels underneath. The explosion likely sent him down to one of the lower levels. That meant there was likely four or five stories worth of metal and concrete pushing down overtop him.

"_Clint, talk to me. What's the damage?"_

A new voice. It took a beat longer than it should have for him to connect the voice to Natasha.

"It'd be easier to say what isn't," Clint slurred. He couldn't even begin to take stock of his injuries when his entire body felt like it was on fire.

"_So dramatic,"_ Natasha teased, though he could hear the tension in her tone. "_Tony's scanning the structure to find a route and then Steve and Thor are coming down for you. Just hang in there, okay?" _

"Like I gotta-" He was cut off by a painful, hacking cough, wheezing in the dirt filled air that tore at his raw throat.

"_Easy, Clint," _Natasha soothed as the coughing fit slowly died off. "_Steve and Thor are on their way." _To accent the point, Clint could hear shifting somewhere far above him. "_In the meantime, give me something. What's your status?"_

"Everythin' still seems t'be attached," Clint allowed as he shifted to look down at himself.

"_Glad to hear it. What else?"_

"Burns," Clint wheezed, taking in the scorched skin he could see along his left arm and left side. Very carefully he shifted each of his arms and then each of his legs, carefully trying to identify how severe the pain associated with each limb. He grimaced, biting back a yelp of pain. "Somthin's definitely broken in right leg."

"_Sounds like all things we can deal with," _Natasha assured him. "_Bruce is prepping to put you back together as we speak."_

"Sounds good," Clint murmured. He glanced up as the sound of large slabs of concrete shifting grew louder.

Finally, at long last, a beam of light broke through to his small pocket of space.

"Clint?"

"Fancy seein' you here, Cap," Clint said with a painful smile.

Steve huffed a tense laugh. "C'mon. Let's get you outta here."

Steve very carefully maneuvered himself down into the small space. He surveyed Clint critically for a moment before reaching down and taking Clint's right arm, helping him slowly sit up. Clint hissed as the motion caused his wounds to protest loudly.

"Sorry," Steve said dismally. "Thor?"

"I am ready!"

Clint glanced up to see Thor leaning down through the gap that Steve had slipped through. Clint tucked his burned left arm protectively up against his side as he reached up his right arm. Steve helped boost him from below while Thor grabbed his wrist and lifted from above. Even so, the short trip was agonizing and Clint couldn't stifle the yelp of pain that tore from his throat.

The rest of the journey was much the same. Steve climbed up behind him and then continued through another gap so that Thor could help Clint up to him. Then they would switch. Clint had to retreated deep within himself, shielding himself so that the pain wouldn't send him into oblivion and he could help in whatever way he could in his rescue, even if it was a simple as lifting his arm to be grabbed.

"Damnit, Clint!" Clint blinked as suddenly a red blur entered his vision. Natasha's face betrayed just how worried she had been. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"My bad," Clint coughed on a light laugh. He glanced around, just noticing that they had made it back up to the main level which was still largely intact. He wanted to feel relief, but at that moment he was consumed by a coughing fit that he was convinced was going to finally tear his chest apart.

"Here, just breathe, Clint."

Bruce's voice filtered into his fogged, oxygen-deprived brain. A moment later he was aware of a clear oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and he reached his right hand up to push it closer to his mouth as he breathed greedily, as if the proximity would somehow magically clear his lungs of all the debris that he had breathed in.

Steve supported him on one side and Thor supported him on the other as they practically carried him out of the remains of the building. Clint blinked against the sunlight, his eyes burning even as the relief finally hit him.

Just another day in the office. Any day that ended with him still alive was a win in his book.


	3. Delirium

**Delirium **

Phil took a deep, steadying breath. He shook his head as if he could shake the exhaustion away. He had been given four hours to get some sleep, but sleep did not come easily these days. He tossed and turned, obsessively checking his phone to make sure he didn't miss any news, even though there wasn't supposed to be any for a while still. So he was running on maybe an hour of light sleep and the large cup of coffee he had just downed that hadn't quite kicked in yet.

Finally he reached out and scanned his palm on the reader. The door in front of him slid open with a hiss and he stepped in.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn and the only light came from a small reading light on the desk on the far side of the room. The light dimly lit the book that was open in Natasha's lap, who looked up quickly at Phil's entrance. He didn't miss the yawn that she tried to hide. He glanced over to the bed and could only just make out a lump in the middle of the covers.

"He's sleeping?" Phil asked.

Natasha nodded as she closed her book and wearily leaned forward, looking toward the bed. "Yes, finally He's been down for about an hour and a half."

"Well, that's good," Phil acknowledged. "Poor kid must be exhausted."

"Yeah," Natasha agreed shortly. She shifted her critical gaze to Phil, looking him up and down. "You sure you're up for another shift? I could hang out a little longer if you want to get some more sleep."

"Thanks, but that's okay," Phil said with a heavy sigh. "I can't get any significant sleep anyway."

"You'll have to sleep eventually," Natasha pointed out.

"So will you," Phil shot back, giving her a knowing look.

Natasha rolled her eyes, but pushed herself to her feet. "Call me if you need anything."

"I will. Thanks, Natasha."

A moment later, the door slid shut again and they were left alone.

Phil headed over to the bed, wanting to check on Clint for himself before settling himself in. He leaned over, but all he could see was a glimpse of mess of blonde hair peeking out from under the covers. Phil didn't dare disturb him, he was just relieved the kid finally seemed to be getting some real rest.

It had been three weeks of chaos that led them up to this point. During a mission gone bad, Clint had been doused with some kind of drug that had been wreaking havoc on his system ever since. The drug seemed to cause intense panic, which didn't seem like the worst thing until Clint managed to work himself up into so much of a frenzy on the way back to base that his heart almost gave out. That was when it really hit them that this drug could be deadly.

Clint had to be kept under sedation for a week while they tried to synthesize an antidote. When they finally found the antidote, it couldn't be mixed with the sedative, which proved to be an almost impossible hurdle when Clint was panicking enough to break through things like restraints and escape locked hospital rooms.

They had endured a week's worth of constant emergency situations before it finally dawned on Phil what direction Clint was always heading when he tried to escape. It took a lot of convincing with Fury, but they finally had Clint moved to his own room. Several precautions had to be made, including locking the room from the outside and clearing the room of all weapons. But there was immediately improvement. While Clint would still panic, it seemed that the familiar room was a comfort. The antidote was finally taking effect and Clint was able to grasp the logic of the situation for short periods of time.

Satisfied that Clint's condition seemed to have stayed the same from the last time Phil had seen him, Phil took Natasha's vacated seat and settled in to wait.

Over the next few hours, Clint was so deathly still that Phil anxiously checked on him every twenty minutes or so. He was contemplating getting the doctors to check on Clint when finally there was movement, so suddenly that Phil immediately regretted taking the stillness for granted.

"No!" The screech came a split second before the covers went flying. "No, please, no, I'm sorry." Raw fear cracked through Clint's voice as he was scrambling back on the bed until his back hit the wall. His eyes darted wildly around the dim room as he wheezed in shallow breaths.

"Easy, Clint," Phil said as calmly as he could, pushing himself to his feet carefully and speaking calmly. They had learned the hard way that rushing Clint only made things worse. "You're safe, everything's okay."

"No, no, no," Clint gasped, his eyes wide without seeing what was right in front of him. He threw his hands over his head and ducked his head protectively. "Shit, no!"

"Clint, it's me, it's Phil," Phil went on, taking a step forward. He did his best to keep his voice low and calm despite the turmoil that Phil felt inside. God, when would this stop? "Please, Clint, look at me. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Please, Clint just see me." Phil was only distantly aware of his voice cracking, his tone begging.

This was taking a toll on him.

Clint flung his head back, the back of his head colliding solidly with the wall behind him, the sharp thud making Phil flinch sympathetically. He just wanted to rush forward, to restrain Clint, to keep him from getting worse. But that would only make things worse, at this point. Clint's eyes had snapped up to the ceiling, still unaware of Phil's presence.

"I wish I could spare you from this, kid," Phil said quietly, taking another step in order to put him right at the edge of the bed. "But you're going to beat this. You're strong, strongest person I know. You've got your demons, kid. But they'll never get the best of you. You'll beat then back and I'll always be here to support you."

He was barely aware of what he was saying. The sleep deprivation was getting him. But as he blinked and refocused on Clint, he said that the kid had dropped his gaze back down and was now looking at him. As Phil watched carefully, Clint lifted a shaky hand and ran it through his sweat soaked hair.

"Clint?" Phil said carefully, hardly daring to hope. These episodes tended to drag on.

There was a heavy silence. Clint blinked once… twice…

"'M sorry, P'il," Clint murmured.

Phil let out a relieved breath as he gave Clint an encouraging smile. "It's not your fault," he reminded him. "The drugs seem to finally be making their way out of your system. That's the quickest you've come back to us."

Clint took in an unsteady breath, still leaning heavily back against the wall behind him. Phil took a deep breath. And then he kicked off his shoes and crawled up onto the bed. He settled himself next to Clint, leaning back up against the wall. Clint shifted, dropping his head to lean up against Phil's shoulder. He was still shaky, but his muscles seemed to already be relaxing.

"Than's P'il."

Phil smiled slightly as he leaned his head against the top of Clint's.

"You're gonna be okay, kid. I promise."


	4. Human Shield

**Human Shield **

The arm around his throat tightened and Clint couldn't help the choking noise that chawed up his throat.

"Stay back! One more step and I'll snap his neck!"

"You do that and you're not walking away from this, pal," Steve growled.

"He'll still be dead."

Clint pushed back slightly, trying to subtly maneuver his neck to relieve some of the pressure. But it was useless, the man had even pressure around Clint's neck, his forearm like a steel rod. The left hand was wrapped around the base of Clint's skull and his right hand was braced on the opposite side of Clint's head. The placement was textbook and Clint knew without a doubt that this man knew what he was doing.

This man was perfectly capable to make good on his promise to kill Clint.

Clint tried to blink the dark edges from his vision as he looked across to his teammates. Steve was standing in front, one hand out placatingly, his lips moving as he attempted to deescalate the situation. Clint suddenly couldn't hear him though as blood was suddenly rushing in his head. Natasha stood a few steps behind Steve, one of her arms thrown out in front of Tony who stood just behind her, keeping him from interfering.

Clint met Natasha's eyes. Her gaze was comforting, encouraging even. The message that she was sending him was crystal clear. _You got this. Take the bastard. _

Clint allowed his eyes to slide shut, letting his muscles go slack against every one of his screaming instincts. The act had the desired effect. The pressure around his neck loosened ever so slightly, the hand against his head shifting out of position just slightly.

He dropped his head under the man's right hand at the same time he threw an elbow into the man's gut. As the man scrambled to fix his hand position on Clint's head - Clint was committed to his escape now, if the man's hand was able to brace on his head again, Clint would be dead - Clint twisted to get some of the pressure off his windpipe. Then he stomped hard on the man's foot, mostly just to distract him from Clint's hand going to knife that was hidden in his vest. He yanked the knife from his sheath and viciously buried it into the gut of the man behind him.

Blessed air flooded in to Clint's lungs and suddenly nothing else mattered. He had no idea what was happening around him and he couldn't bring himself to care, all he could focus on was desperately heaving oxygen in to his starved lungs. Every wheezing breath was equally agonizing and blissful.

"Clint? Clint, can you hear me?"

Slowly, the world began coming back to him. He was on his knees, one hand braced against the rough ground, the other braced against his chest as if it could help ease the pain in his lungs. There was a firm hand on his back and another on his shoulder. With an effort, Clint lifted his head as he continued to wheeze, still trying desperately to replenish his oxygen deprived body.

"Take it easy, it's okay," Steve assured him. "Slow down your breaths, you need to breath in to your stomach.

With an effort, Clint attempted to do as he was told. It took several long minutes, but finally it felt like he was at least able to fill his lungs, even if the air still burned down his throat. He pushed himself back to sit back on his haunches and take in his surroundings.

Steve was crouched on one side, a worried look as his eyes anxiously took in Clint's condition. Natasha was crouched on his other side, a worried yet prideful look to her features. Tony stood over the group, his faceplate still in place, making it difficult to judge what was going through his mind.

"That was reckless," Steve scolded. "He could have killed you!"

"H' was gonna…" Clint winced, his voice painfully raw. "...do tha' anyway, Cap."

"You should have let us take care of it," Steve insisted, but the confidence behind his tone wavered.

"Steve, anything we did was going to send the man off," Natasha pointed out. "Any time that passed after an attack was going to risk Clint's life. Him taking care of it himself posed the shortest risk."

"You are both way too intense," Tony said, huffing a disbelieving laugh.

"Maybe, but it's gotten us this far," Natasha snapped with a sharp look up at Iron Man.

"Ain' broke…" Clint rasped quietly with a pained smirk, "...don' fix it."

"Okay, no more talking from you," Steve said with a sympathetic smile. He carefully helped Clint up to his feet, supporting him as he wavered. "Let's get you to a medic, tough guy."


	5. Gunpoint

**Gunpoint**

It wasn't unusual for Clint to wander a city after a job was done. The kid loved to explore and sometimes the time between a hit and their evac was the only significant downtime they got for months at a time. But as the sun sank down toward the horizon and there had been no word from Clint since he left hours before, Phil had a mixture of annoyance and concern. Finally, he decided the situation warranted a phone call.

The phone rang five times before Clint finally answered.

"_Hey."_

"I know you're technically off duty, kid, but I just wanted to check in," Phil said. "You heading back soon? You really should get some sleep before we're evac'd out of here."

"_Yeah, no that's probably not a good idea."_

Phil arched an eyebrow. It was an odd way to answer the question. "Where are you right now?"

"_No, I really can't talk long. Kind of got my hands full here." _

Red flag. Phil tensed.

"Kid... do you have a gun on you right now?"

"_Yeah, everything's fine."_

Honestly it took Phil a beat longer than it should have to really comprehend the coded message that Clint had just given him. How the hell had Clint gotten into a situation while he was off duty?

"You better not be screwing with me, kid," Phil warned. "How many guns on you?"

"_Probably around three o'clock if that works for you." _

Three guns.

Phil sighed heavily. "How many hostiles?"

"_Look, I really can't talk right now, I'm beat, I've been up since five o'clock this morning. Can I call you back later?"_

Five hostiles.

"I need an idea of where you're at, kid," Phil implored.

"_Yeah, definitely, we'll grab a coffee or something. I'll talk to you later."_

The line went dead.

"You've got to be kidding me," Phil mumbled to himself on a heavy sigh as he hung up his phone and headed to grab some supplies.

As Phil headed out, he tried to track Clint's phone, but as expected he couldn't find the signal. Whoever was holding Clint likely made him turn off the phone right after he hung up. At least Clint had given him a starting spot to begin his search.

It took Phil no time at all to reach the coffee shop where they had stopped for a drink when they first arrived in the city, before they commenced their recon for the mission. The shop was right on the edge of the industrial district, filled with warehouses that have been mostly empty for years since a brutal economic crash. Phil figured that was as good a place as any to start his search.

He moved carefully but quickly through the streets, his sidearm discreetly held at his side. The area was mostly deserted, save for a few small groups of homeless scattered around. He had been anxious to begin with, but with no more hint of where Clint might be, he was struggling not to cross over to full on panic.

Phil paused as something caught his eye. The rusty color of blood staining metal siding of one of the warehouses. In a tough neighborhood like this it wasn't all that unusual, but something had Phil moving over for a closer look. As he did, he kicked something lying on the edge of the street, sending it skidding away with a metallic swish. He looked down and his stomach dropped. He moved forward to retrieve the knife, recognizing it as one of the emergency weapons that Clint kept on him at all times.

Phil zeroed his focus in on the warehouse. Now that he was concentrating, he could hear muffled noises coming from inside. As he crept closer, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle of some sort. Phil flicked the safety on his sidearm off as he silently made his way over to a large, sliding garage door that had been left open a crack. He paused long enough to count six heads - five that wore dark, knit caps ganged up on a sixth with a familiar mess of blonde hair - before he shoved the door the rest of the way open and charged inside.

Frantic shouts and gunshots echoed through the large, empty warehouse, sending Phil diving behind a few nearby crates for cover. Phil managed to drop three of the hostiles, and his distraction gave Clint the opening to get his feet under him and snap the necks of two others.

The whole thing was over in under thirty seconds.

Phil emerged from behind the crates, his sidearm still drawn and at the ready as he eyed the corpses around him, making sure that they were all definitely down. There was no movement. Finally, he shifted his gaze to Clint… who was pale and wavering on his feet.

"Clint?" Phil gasped. He rushed forward, but Clint's knees crumpled underneath him while Phil was still steps away. "Jesus, Clint!" Phil went to his knees next to Clint, bracing Clint's shoulder to keep him upright.

That's when he saw the blood soaking Clint's opposite arm.

"Your timing couldn't be better, Phil," Clint huffed on a weary breath with a strained smile.

"What the hell happened?" Phil demanded as he shifted to get a better look at the arm.

Clint winced and groaned. "I got shot."

"Well shit, I can see that," Phil snapped, his gaze zeroing in on the wound high in Clint's bicep. Phil shrugged out of his jacket. "How the hell did you get shot? And don't you dare say from a gun."

Clint smirked but then groaned as Phil pressed his jacket to the wound. "I was just out for a walk, minding my own business, when I came upon these fine gentlemen beating up on a couple kids. I decided that they looked like they needed to be taught a lesson."

"Just out for a walk?" Phil said suspiciously, arching an eyebrow. "In this very nice neighborhood?"

"You know me," Clint said with a sheepish smile, shrugging his good shoulder, though the movement still elicited a wince and small groan.

"Yeah, I do," Phil said with a resigned sigh, though he couldn't help the small smile that pulled at his lips. "So, you were teaching a lesson and…?"

"Asshole got in a lucky shot," Clint said, glaring down at the wound as if it were offensive.

"Okay, well next time you go out on the town to teach some lessons, you damn well better bring me along. Because you clearly can't be trusted alone. Now come on, let's get the hell out of here and get that bullet out of your arm and patch you up."


	6. Dragged Away

**Dragged Away**

It was difficult to see this as a win. They had accomplished what they had set out to do, but as Clint had watched helplessly as Rhodey had fallen out of the sky, taken down by friendly fire, the idea that the good of the many outweighed the good of the few was a difficult concept to really get his mind around.

Clint heavily pushed himself to his feet, the world tipped around him and threatening to send him back down. It was a safe bet that he had a pretty good concussion. He blinked against the dark spots at the edges of his vision as he took in the current situation. Tony, Sam and Vision had all rushed to Rhode's aid in the nearby field. Natasha and T'Challa were both MIA, both last seen heading for the hanger. He also didn't see the Spider-_Thing?_ that Tony had brought along or Scott.

That left just him and Wanda.

Clint made his way over to where Wanda sat on the ground, staring wide eyed in the direction of where Rhodey had fallen. Clint's steps were unsteady as he approached, the world tilting as he crouched down next to her, causing him to brace one hand on the ground in order to keep him upright.

"You okay?" Clint asked quietly, looking over Wanda for any obvious injuries that needed attention.

"I… I tried," Wanda stammered softly, still staring off into the distance. Clint looked at her in confusion. "I tried to catch him. He was… he was moving too fast and I… I couldn't f-focus."

"It's not your fault, Wanda," Clint said sympathetically. "There wasn't anything any of us could do."

Wanda swallowed thickly. "Do you think…" She finally turned to look at Clint, her eyes wide and fearful. "Do you think he survived?"

_God, there's no way from that height…_

"I don't know," Clint said softly instead, though he wasn't able to meet her pleading gaze.

The sound of incoming aircraft drew Clint's attention behind him. He watched with a grim resignation as half a dozen military owned Qunjets landed a short distance away. There was no use in trying to run, he had no doubt that Secretary Ross had no qualms over using the Quinjets' weaponry against them at this point.

This was it. It was over for them.

Just a minute later, the area was swarmed with the team sent to bring them in. Scott was hauled up from the far side of the area and taken to one of the jets. Another group of soldiers headed out to the field and the remaining group stormed toward Clint and Wanda.

Clint carefully pushed himself up to his feet and Wanda slowly followed suit. Instinct had Clint stepping slightly in front of Wanda, even though he knew in his gut that he couldn't protect her from what was about to happen.

"We're not resisting," Clint said loudly, holding his empty hands out and away from him as the group approached with guns drawn.

Either they didn't hear him or they didn't care.

Clint was roughly pulled away from Wanda and shoved down to his knees. The world swam dizzyingly around him as his arms were yanked behind his back and a set of abnormally thick handcuffs were snapped tightly over his wrists. Then he was hauled painfully back to his feet.

Clint was still reeling from the treatment when he heard the scream. He wrenched his head around in time to see Wanda struggling in the middle of a group of six men.

"Wanda!" Clint called, intending to implore her to calm down and be compliant. But that was before he saw the collar.

Wanda's hands had already been cuffed behind her back, but she was being held by three men - one on either side of her and a third behind her trying to pull her head up to expose her neck - while two more had guns on her and the final man was trying to get a thick metal collar around Wanda's neck as she struggled desperately.

"Hey, hey!" Clint yelled, beginning to struggle against his own restraints. "Leave her alone, she's just a kid, we're not resisting! Leave her alone!"

Again, his words seemed completely lost to these men. They continued to try and forcibly subdue Wanda as she screamed her protests. A dull red pulse emanated from her, though with not nearly the power that Clint had come to expect from her. Her powers were still a bit of a mystery to them - Wanda included - but it seemed that the battle had managed to drain at least some of the power from her. Even so, another pulse, then another, then another radiated from her, each one gaining strength, causing the men hold her to struggle, grabbing on tighter to keep from being pushed away.

"The collar!" one of the men yelled frantically. "Get the collar on her!"

Clint struggled desperately against the men holding him, but to no avail. All he could do was watch helplessly as with one final furious lunge, the man snapped the collar around Wanda's neck.

"It's on!"

And with that announcement, suddenly the men that had been holding Wanda lunged away from her. Clint didn't have time to be confused by the sudden change. In the next breath, Wanda was collapsing to the ground with a horrific screech.

"Stop, stop it!" Clint screamed, pulling hard against the men holding him back. "You bastards, she's just a kid! Stop!"

For just a second, Clint almost got away. The grip on one side slipped away and he turned toward the remaining man and kicked out viciously, sending the man crumbling to the ground with an agonized yell. But before he could get any farther, several of the remaining men tackled Clint hard to the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

As he gasped in air to abused lungs - sharp pain telling him he likely fractured at least one rib - he twisted his head around to see that Wanda had gone still on the ground.

Clint was still struggling and cursing as he was dragged back to his feet. Wanda was lifted between two thugs, her head lulling weakly on her shoulders as she barely hung on to consciousness. Clint felt rage welling up within him, but complied as he was led after Wanda, at least relieved they were keeping them in close proximity.

The relief didn't last though. As they approached the jets, Wanda was carried toward one jet, while Clint was pulled toward another. The intended separation sparked another rebellion from Clint. He yelled, yanked against his restraints, lashed out at anyone that he could. Despite all his efforts, four men forcibly dragged him away from Wanda and up the ramp into a separate jet.

Clint's wrists were wet with blood from his restraints, his throat raw from screaming, his chest and head throbbing as he body begged him to stop the abuse. He stubbornly ignored all of this. All of it was for nothing though as he was forced to watch the ramp lifting up until the jet was once again sealed shut.

At that moment, everything within Clint collapsed and his body following suit as everything went black.


	7. Isolation

**Isolation**

It wouldn't be so bad if he could just sleep.

You would think with infinite time on your hands, you'd at least have plenty of time to catch up on sleep. But Clint felt more restless than ever. Closing his eyes only made him feel antsy and trying to quiet his mind was impossible.

It wouldn't be so bad if he could walk around.

When he had first been thrown unceremoniously into this cell, he had taken to pacing. The cell was eight paces wide and five paces deep. He knew that keeping up his muscle strength was an important part of captivity. It had been easy to do at first. But then a week passed and his pacing had become more and more arduous. Two weeks of pretty uneventful captivity and he developed a pretty significant limp and he wasn't quite sure why. He was likely approaching the three week mark - it was difficult to keep track of the passable of time at this point - and just getting to his feet proved to be a torturous process.

It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feel like his brain was trying to claw its way out of his skull.

The pain was only the half of it. His head felt heavy and it was becoming a chore just to hold it up. There was a sharp pain behind his eyes and he found it difficult to really focus his gaze on anything in particular. Sometimes he could swear that the shadows at the edges of his visions would shift and morph into shapes that looked disturbingly like human figures from time to time.

It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't here.

After he had been captured, he had been relieved when they had dumped in him a small, windowless cell and simply left him alone. Surely that was preferably to being tortured for information, wasn't it? But after weeks of complete isolation, he was finally figuring out that this was a torture in and of itself.

The only semblance of interaction that he got was once a day when a tray with minimal water and a bite or two of food was shoved through a small opening at the base of the solid metal door. After about a week, he had started yelling obscenities at the door whenever the tray appeared. Because the tray had to be brought by a human being, right? He tried desperately to get some kind of reaction from this mysterious person, anything to prove to him that the outside world still existed, that _he _still existed. But there was never any response. For all Clint knew, the meager rations meant to keep him just barely alive were delivered by machine, and this was what his life would be from now on.

Clint had wedged himself into the corner closest to the door days ago - a week? two? - because if he wasn't within an arm's reach of the tray when it appeared, he wasn't sure that he'd put forth the effort anymore. But he felt like it had been a long time since a tray had appeared. The passage of time was almost impossible for him to track, however he had noticed just when he began to fade, the tray would appear. They were clearly only interested in keeping him barely alive. But he could feel the familiar signs of fading away… and no tray appeared.

Maybe this was it. Maybe they were done with him. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he should have started ignoring those damn trays a long time ago.

And then, all at once, his world exploded.

His brain couldn't even begin to understand what was happening. All he knew for a long while was white hot pain. Raw panic consumed his ever fiber and he was vaguely aware of his muscles spasming on their own whims.

Finally, something shifted. The white hot pain faded to a dim light. There was a soft noise nearby, one that he couldn't even begin to identify. It was strange… but maybe not as terrible as his frazzled brain had originally thought.

"Please. Please Clint. Look at me."

Words. Words that had some kind of meaning. Right? Didn't he know that voice?

"It's okay, Clint. We've got you. You're okay, you're safe. Please, look at me."

Clint blinked. It was more than a shadow that was crouched over him. It was a solid, human being. Someone that he knew. Features faded in and out of focus, but there was something terribly familiar about the way that he felt.

"Ph'l?" Clint's voice was raw, his lips numb and his mouth filled with cotton.

The corner of Phil's lips turned upward. It was a smile, Clint realized belatedly. "Christ, kid, you scared the hell out of me."

Clint blinked slowly, struggling to understand what those words meant when they were all strung together like that. When did thinking become so exhausting?

"Okay, how about we get you the hell out of here."

Suddenly, his entire world shifted. By the time his mind caught up, he realized that he was upright, supported by Phil on one side and someone else on the other. They moved through empty, quiet hallways. Clint felt his mind finally catching up with what was happening.

Phil found him. He was being rescued.

"Th'nks," he murmured. He seemed like a wildly inadequate sentiment to describe how he felt, but it was the only word that his brain could come up with.

"You know I'll always come for you." Phil's voice was like a balm washing over him.

As they stepped out into the bright sunlight, it burned his sensitive eyes, but even that wasn't enough to dampen his rising spirits. The nightmare was over. As Phil carried him back out into the world, Clint felt his mouth tightening, the corners of his lips tugging upward in as close to a smile as he could manage.

He was free.


	8. Stab Wound

**Author's Note:**Okay! So with this chapter posted I've caught up with what I already had written for Tumblr. I hope I didn't overwhelm those who get email alerts from me! I should have one more chapter posted today for today's prompt, and after that I should be posting only once a day. Thank you sooooo much for those who have already shown their support in the form of reviews! **KayCee-616**, **GloriousPurpose12**, **LisaG16**, **Reagangirl**, **anaticulapraecantrix**, and **Amie88**! I mentioned before that I've had a rough couple months, and you guys have no idea how much it means to me to read your kind words! I appreciate the crap out of all of you!

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**Stab Wound**

There was no time to buckle in, all Steve and Tony could do was grab hold of anything nearby as the ground rushed up at them and hope it would be enough.

The impact was brutal. Clint had managed to keep the Quinjet somewhat level during the crash, but hitting the ground at that speed was still devastating to the jet. Not to mention the people inside the jet. Steve and Tony were violently thrown from one side to the other, crashing hard into the wall of the jet. Steve was more durable than the average person, but even he lost consciousness for a short period of time.

Steve blinked, looking around the wrecked jet blearily. Then his gaze fell on Tony's crumpled form and everything was yanked into painful clarity. Steve shoved himself up, scrambling over to where Tony lay.

"Stark!" Steve gasped as he looked over Tony for signs of life. "Tony! Are you okay?"

Relief washed over Steve as Tony immediately reacted to his presence. He groaned, pushing himself up onto his side, blinking hard. Steve continued to look him over critically, but other than blood running from a superficial wound on the side of his face, Tony seemed miraculously to have endured without serious injury.

"Anyone alive back there?"

Taking one more moment to look over Tony as he shifted to sit, clearly shook up but thankfully alive, Steve turned toward the voice, hurrying up into the cockpit of the jet.

"Yeah, we're okay," Steve said with a sigh of relief. Clint was still strapped into the pilot's seat, and Steve eyed the safety restraints gratefully, knowing they likely saved Clint's life. "How about you?"

Clint let out a relieved sigh as he leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, I think so," he said, a bit breathless.

"That was some damn good flying," Steve said ducking his head to look out the cracked windshield to the small clearing Clint had managed to crash land them in to.

"Thanks," he said was a weary smile. "The hostile jet?"

They had run into trouble when an enemy jet took out their weapons systems. They had to improvise, Steve and Tony opening the side hatch of the jet, to fire on the enemy in order to keep them at bay.

"I got a grenade in a whole Tony made just before they shot us down," Steve said. He looked up toward the sky, spotting a second trail of smoke from their own. "No way they survived that."

"Barton still alive up there?" Tony called from the back.

"Yeah," Steve confirmed, glancing back toward the back of the jet.

Tony had gotten to his feet and had apparently been inspecting the damage. He headed back up toward the front of the jet with a slight limp, looking concerned.

"Good, because we gotta get the hell out of here," Tony said. "Something's smoking like a chimney back there and I smell gas. Hanging out in here while we wait for rescue isn't going to go well."

"I got a distress beacon out before we went down," Clint said. "Hopefully it was picked up."

"In the meantime, Tony's right, let's grab some supplies and get some distance in case this thing blows," Steve said.

Clint quickly reached up and unclipped the buckle in the middle of his chest. He shrugged out of the left side of the strap, but as he went to shrug his right shoulder he groaned and suddenly all his muscles locked up.

"Clint?" Steve said, who had been halfway out of the cockpit, only to duck back in when Clint didn't get up from his seat.

Clint looked down, confused. "Shit, I think there's something sharp down there."

"Okay, careful," Steve said, moving fully into the cockpit and slipping between the pilot and copilot's seats. "You don't want it to cut you."

"Yeah," Clint agreed distractedly as he leaned away from the side, only to wince and groan again. "Shit."

"Can you see it?" Steve asked.

"Not really," Clint said. "Too dark down there."

"Stark," Steve called back to where Tony was sorting through what supplies they had. At a glance, he could see smoke coming from somewhere near the back of the jet. "Can you find a flashlight or something?"

Tony materialized a moment later, holding out the requested flashlight. "What's the holdup? This really isn't the time for shadow puppets."

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he held the flashlight up and flicked it on, pointed it down toward Clint's side. "Clint might be caught on something. Trying to get a look at it so he doesn't hurt himself."

"Well, hurry up," Tony said offhandedly. "Clock's ticking."

"Can you see?" Steve asked Clint.

Clint was staring down at his side and didn't react to Steve's question. Finally, Steve leaned over to get a look for himself. What he saw turned his stomach. Wet blood coated Clint's side. It was enough to district Steve from the real problem for a moment. Finally, he saw the twisted piece of metal from a hidden wreckage under the console that had pierced Clint's side.

"Shit," Steve breathed, his eyes widening. He shifted his gaze to look at Clint's face which appeared strangely blank given the situation. "You didn't feel that?"

"I, uh…" Clint murmured distantly.

"Tony!" Steve called urgently.

"Guys, the situation is becoming more of a quagmire," Tony said, tension in his voice as he reappeared. "We really need to start moving."

"Clint's stuck," Steve said. "He's got…" He trailed off, at a loss for how to properly describe the predicament. Instead, he just took a step back and motioned for Tony to take a look for himself.

Tony sent him a confused look before he stepped forward. As he did, Steve glanced back toward the back of the Quinjet. The ceiling of the compartment was almost covered with smoke as it moved steadily toward the cockpit.

Their time was running out.

"Shit," Tony hissed as he saw the metal that was twisted viciously into Clint's side.

"We need a plan," Steve said tensely.

"Okay, okay, hang on," Tony said, snapping a little. He studied the situation with a critical mechanic's eye. "Okay, that needs to stay with him, pulling it out is going to start a blood flow that we're not prepared to deal with. Hang on."

Tony disappeared again.

"Clint?" Steve said carefully, unsettled by the fact that Clint hadn't had much of a reaction yet. He reached out with his free hand and placed it on Clint's shoulder. "Clint?"

Clint mechanically turned his head, looking up at Steve with a bit of a detached bewilderment. "I… didn't feel it…"

"It was probably the adrenaline," Steve said. "Just keep still. Tony's working on getting you out and help will be on the way."

_Hopefully… _After all, they weren't completely sure the beacon was picked up by anyone before the jet went down.

"Okay, here we go," Tony said, rushing back in, brandishing a small tool. He paused to cough and Steve send an uncomfortable look behind him. There was more smoke. "We just need to cut you free and we'll be the hell out of here."

It was awkward to get everyone where they needed to be. Tony had to uncomfortably lean over Clint in order to reach the twisted metal. Steve stepped back and leaned over the back of Clint's seat in order to get the light from the flashlight in the right spot. Clint leaned his head heavily back on the seat, a sweat breaking out on his brow.

A small laser shot out from the tool Tony had brought, and he went to work cutting through the metal a few inches away from Clint's side. Steve watched the frustratingly slow progress, trying hard not to shift impatiently. He glanced over at Clint and was startled to see that his eyes had closed at some point.

"Clint?" Steve said worriedly. "Still with us?"

"Yeah," Clint said quietly, his voice wavering.

"Hang in there," Steve said. "Tony's almost done and then we'll get you out of here."

"Almost…" Tony murmured distractly as he worked. "Ah, damn!"

"Tony?" Steve said with alarm.

"No, it's okay, just gotta detour a little," Tony said quickly as he shifted. He paused to cough again… and that's when Steve noticed how much of the smoke was now pouring in. Another tense minute passed and then… "Done!"

"Okay, I've got Clint, you grab what supplies you can," Steve said, quickly jumping into action mode. He didn't do standing around well.

"On it," Tony said as he pushed himself back and rushed back to the back of the jet.

Steve leaned over and pushed the shoulder strap of Clint's safety belt the rest of the way off. "C'mon," he urged, reaching over and pulling Clint to his feet as carefully as he could.

Unfortunately, there was never going to be an easy way to do this. Clint hissed and groaned, his skin paling to sickly white. It probably wasn't ideal to be moving him at all, but the smoke was getting thicker by the second and it simply wasn't an option to leave Clint where he was. Steve shifted around and ducked under Clint's right arm, careful to keep space between him and the piece of metal so that he didn't jar it.

"Let's go, let's go!" Tony called frantically.

They hurried through the back of the Quinjet, both coughing on the thick smoke. They came to the still open side hatch where Tony was waiting, looking up at them anxiously. There was no hope in getting the ramp down, but luckily the crash had ended with that side of the Quinjet angled down toward the ground, so the distance wasn't too far.

It was still an agonizing trip for Clint. Steve helped him sit on the edge of opening, though his stomach twisted in sympathy as Clint groaned through the entire process. Tony had been waiting for them there and reached up, helping Clint slide out of the jet and onto the ground. But when Clint's feet hit the ground he let out a loud yelp and his knees buckled out from under him.

"Damnit," Steve cursed as he jumped out of the jet after him.

"We've got fire," Tony pointed out from where he crouched next to Clint.

Steve glanced over his shoulder to see the flames coming from the back of the jet. They didn't have time to be gentle.

"Sorry," Steve said and he leaned down and pulled Clint back up to his feet, relieved that despite the pained noises clawing up his throat, Clint didn't resist. Tony ducked in on Clint's other side and together they started moving away from the jet. "Let's get to the trees. I want something solid between us and that jet."

No sooner had they passed the tree line, a loud explosion echoed through the air, the force of it sending a wave of hot air over them. Steve immediately shifted to put himself between his teammates and the explosion, but thankfully none of the debris made it this far.

"That was too close," Tony panted.

"Yeah," Steve agreed with a sigh. He turned back to Clint, studying him carefully. He was as a sheet, sweat streaking down his face. His muscles spasmed every so often, causing him to grimace in pain. He still had one arm thrown over Tony's shoulder, but was hunched over so much that it was clear he wouldn't be on his feet without aid. "C'mon, let's sit for a minute."

Steve and Tony carefully helped Clint lower down, leaning him up against a nearby tree. Just as they did Steve heard the unmistakable sound of a jet flying overhead. He tensed, moving closer to his teammates before he spotted the jet, along with the SHIELD insignia on the wing. Steve let out a relieved breath.

"Looks like that beacon did get picked up," Steve told Clint with a smile as Tony hurried out of the trees with a flare gun in order to signal the rescue team.

Clint had likely saved both Steve and Tony's lives with his piloting of the Quinjet. It was gut wrenching to see him suffering for it. But it was another mission that ended with everyone still breathing, Steve realized as the med team tended to Clint. It wasn't a great day, but it certainly could have been worse.


	9. Shackled

**Shackled**

"_Scans are showing no heat signatures."_

"Are you sure?" Steve asked quietly.

"_Believe it or not, scans are not rocket science. There are either heat signatures or there aren't heat signatures. This place is stone cold. Probably been abandoned."_

Natasha swallowed thickly as she glared at the snow covered complex. Apparently, this was another dead end. It had been three days since Clint had been captured, three days of desperately searching, and it felt like they were no closer now than they had been when he had first disappeared.

"Check again," Steve said into his comm. his eyes darting up to the sky where Iron Man could be seen streaking through the heavy clouds overhead. "Just to be sure."

They could both hear the sigh over the comm. as Iron Man looped back around to rescan the area.

"We're running out of time," Natasha found herself saying quietly.

"You don't know that," Steve said stubbornly.

"There was no ransom, no demands," Natasha said flatly. "Whatever reason they took him, it's likely they wouldn't want to keep him around long. After all, who wants to be caught with an Avenger in their dungeon? Anybody with any brains knows that would be suicide these days."

Steve was quiet. Natasha sent a sideways look at him, crouched in the snow in winter fatigues that matched her own. His face was stoic as his eyes were pinned on the facility in front of them. He didn't want to admit that she was right, but it wasn't in his nature to be realistic about things like these. Captain America was used to pulling off the impossible.

But, in Natasha's experience, sometimes the impossible was just that. Impossible.

"_Wait, I might have something." _

Natasha sat up suddenly, every sense alert at the sound of Tony's voice.

"What is it?" Steve demanded.

"_It's… it's small," _Tony said, sounding a little unsure. "_It could just be a fluke. Somebody left the TV on and it's starting to overheat, you know?"_

"But there's a heat signature," Steve said.

"_I can't tell for sure if it's a person, but yeah, there's something at least lukewarm in there," _Tony said, not sounding terribly convinced.

"Good enough," Steve decided as he pushed himself to his feet. "Let's go check it out. Tony, meet us down at the complex."

As Natasha stood and checked her weapons, she suddenly felt short of breath. Could she possibly dare to hope? Experience had taught her that it was foolish to expect a happy ending.

"Ready?" Steve asked, looking at her with sympathy.

Natasha gave one curt nod. And then they were moving.

It took them no time at all to emerge from the trees and make their way down the slope toward the complex. Even though no additional heat signatures had been spotted, they kept their weapons drawn and their eyes sharp as they looked for danger. But there was no movement whatsoever around the compound, the only noise was Steve and Natasha's footsteps crunching into the snow as they moved.

"Took you long enough," Tony said as they approached where he already stood at the entrance. "I'd say let's knock, but I'm pretty sure there's no one home."

"Stay sharp, just in case," Steve said.

"Shall we?" Tony said as he turned and pushed open the large double doors, which groaned loudly.

"Not even locked?" Natasha said skeptically.

"It's either a very big trap or just a big empty building," Tony said as they peered into the dark hallway.

"Only one way to find out," Steve said. And with that he stepped forward, disappearing into the darkness.

Natasha and Tony hurried after him. As they entered the building, Tony brought up several lights on his suit in order to light their way. Even so, the shadows were still deep and foreboding as they moved through deserted hallways.

"Where was the heat signature?" Steve asked quietly, his voice bouncing off the stone walls.

"It was down on a sublevel, that's why I missed it on the first scan," Tony said. "Northwest corner of the complex."

Steve nodded as he led the way in that direction. It didn't take them long to find a set of stone steps heading down. As they descended, Natasha took notice that these steps went deeper than just an ordinary level. Wherever they were headed, it was located significantly below the rest of the complex.

The sublevel was just as quiet and bare as the upper level. They checked several rooms that they past and found what appeared to be several labs that had been cleared out in a hurry. Beakers and test tubes were scattered haphazardly around and empty folders littered the floors next to piles of ash where their contents had been burned.

Everything about this place screamed abandoned. Natasha eyes one of the piles of ash in the fourth room that they searched. Perhaps one of the piles hadn't been completely out and was still smoldering somewhere. That would explain the small heat signature that Tony had caught on his scans.

They were at the end of the hallway. There was only one room left. Natasha had so little hope at this point, that when Steve pushed open the door, she couldn't comprehend what she saw on the other side.

This room was much smaller than the rest. Much more empty as well. But not completely empty, Natasha realized a long second after she should have.

"Clint!" she gasped as she rushed into the room.

In the light from Tony's suit, Clint could be seen in the middle of the room. His hands were pulled up over his head, shackled to a chain that hung from the ceiling, pulled up so that his feet barely touched the floor. His boots were gone and so was his shirt, revealing deep bruises along his rib cage. His eyes were closed and his head hung limply on his shoulders. Natasha came to a skidding stop just steps from where he hung as the reality of the situation hit her like a brick wall.

"Is he…?" Tony's voice trailed off, but the word that went unspoken still hung heavily in the room.

_Dead. _

Before anyone could say or do anything else, suddenly Clint's muscles spasmed fiercely tremors wracking through his limp body. The sudden violent action snapped Natasha out of her stupor and sent her rushing forward, reaching up in a vain attempt to steady Clint.

"Clint!" Natasha said as she reached up and put a hand on the side of his face. His eyelids were fluttering weakly, but she couldn't tell if that was really consciousness or just another muscle spasm.

"We need to get him down," Steve said unnecessarily from where he had materialized next to her.

"Here, move," Tony said, gently moving Natasha out of the way. It took everything in her not to let her instincts go on the attack, but Natasha knew despite how annoying Stark could be, he was ultimately a good man and here to help. "Cap, get ready to catch him."

As Tony aimed his hand up at the shackles while Steve moved forward and wrapped his arms around Clint's torso. A laser shot out from Tony's gauntlet, cut away at the restraints. A few long seconds later and the chain snapped, Steve supporting Clint's weight as he carefully lowered him down and laid him out of the ground.

Natasha immediately hurried back over and knelt at Clint's side as Steve broke the shackles around Clint's wrists. As he did so, Natasha couldn't help but stare at Clint's abused and bloodied wrists. His left hand sat at an odd angle, indicating a possible break. She shifted her gaze to take in the rest of his condition. Other than his wrists and the bruising, he didn't have much in the way of external injuries. That in an of itself was frustrating, since they weren't equipped to deal with any internal injuries here and now.

"Clint?" Natasha said softly, leaning in closer.

Clint's muscles spasmed at odd intervals, though not as violently as they had when he had been hanging. His breathing was shallow and raspy, seeming painful with each small breath he took. He was malnourished, dehydrated, sleep deprived… and he had just been abandoned here to die slowly and painfully.

But at the sound of her voice, Clint's eyes finally fluttered open. His bleary gaze took her in for a moment before sliding past her.

"It's okay," she said quietly, grabbing his hand and squeezing it gently. She was pretty sure he wasn't in any state to comprehend what she was saying, but she hoped that at least the sound of her voice might help bring him back to them. "We've got you. It's okay now, Clint."

"We need to get him out of here," Steve said.

Natasha nodded. Steve moved forward, threading one hand under Clint's legs and another behind his shoulders, carefully heaving him up into his arms. Clint was still hovering somewhere near consciousness, his head lolling on his shoulders and a low groan crawling up his throat.

Still wary of any hostiles that might be lingering, Natasha took point with her sidearm drawn, Steve followed her and Tony took up the rear to watch their six. Thankfully though the trip back out of the complex was uneventful. Apparently the group really had vacated the building and just left Clint hanging in the dungeon. Rage boiled up within Natasha. She was going to find who did this and they were going to pay dearly.

At long last, they made it back to the Quinjet. Tony shed his armor and immediately headed for the pilot's seat as Steve settled Clint onto a cot in the back of the jet. As Natasha kneeled down next to the cot she saw that Clint's eyes were open and searching.

"N'tasha?" Clint breathed.

Natasha smiled, placing a comforting hand on Clint's forehead and Steve covered him with several blankets to ward off the biting cold. "We've got you. It's going to be okay."

Natasha couldn't tell if she imagined it or not as the jet rumbled to life and lifted off the ground. But she could have sworn she saw the corners of Clint's lips twitching upward just before he slipped into a restful sleep.


	10. Unconscious

**Author's Note:**Thank you so much to **Amie88**, **anaticulapraecantrix**, and **KayCee-616** for taking the time to review the last chapter! I very much appreciate you guys!

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** Unconscious**

Phil looked up from his computer as the door to the safehouse opened. He looked Clint up and down as he trudged in. It had been a long mission, Clint was supposed to only have to stake out the mark for twenty-four hours max. It had turned into an over forty-eight hour stake out that ended with hand to hand combat with the mark's seven bodyguards before Clint was finally able to take out the mark himself.

"You okay?" Phil asked anxiously as he pushed himself up to his feet.

"I really don't want to talk about it," Clint mumbled tiredly as he unceremoniously dropped his gear at the door.

"We don't have to talk about it right now," Phil assured as he approached. "But are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Clint snapped, waving off Phil as he headed for the bathroom. "I just wanna shower and take a nap." He suddenly stopped, staring at the bathroom door for a long moment. Uncomfortably long. But just when Phil was about to say something, Clint spoke again. "Maybe nap and then shower." He turned and headed for his cot instead.

"Good idea," Phil said, watching Clint carefully. He wasn't sure exactly why, but something seemed off. He knew that Clint would be annoyed that the mission had taken a bad turn, but even so he wasn't usually this surly. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I just…" Clint mumbled, coming to another stop and staring vacantly down at his cot.

"Clint?" Phil said after a long pause.

"I think I'm gonna shower and then nap." Clint turned and started heading for the bathroom again.

"Clint, hang on," Phil said, now damn certain that something was wrong.

"No, I don't wanna…" Clint snapped, stopping again in the middle of the room. He looked around the room, before looking back at Phil. "Wait… what…?"

"Clint, I think you should sit down," Phil said.

Clint stared at him blankly for a long moment. And then, very suddenly, Clint collapsed in the middle of the floor.

"Clint!" Phil shouted as he rushed forward.

He went to his knees, carefully checking Clint for injuries. There was no sign of blood, he felt up and down Clint's limbs and couldn't find any broken bones. There were some bruises that were developing from the fight, but nothing that looked terribly concerning. Very carefully, Phil shifted Clint so that he was lying flat on his back. He checked Clint's pulse, finding it slow but steady. He leaned in, listening to Clint's breath. It was shallow, but there.

What the hell was going on?

"Clint?" Phil said again, focusing on Clint's lax features. "Clint, can you hear me? What the hell did you do?"

Finally, it dawned on Phil. He felt around Clint head and it only took him a minute to find that knot at the back of Clint's skull. Clint must have hit his head at some point and now had a concussion.

"Damnit, kid, you should have said something," Phil scolded the unconscious Clint, even though it was likely Clint didn't even remember it happened.

Phil sat back, feeling helpless. There really wasn't much that he could do here. Their evac was on the way, Phil knew Clint would want to get out of here as soon as possible. It was going to be at least another two hours though. Best case scenario, it was just a simple concussion, one that would heal with rest. Worst case scenario was Clint was bleeding into his brain. And there was nothing Phil could do about that here and now.

Phil glanced down at his watch, trying to get a rough time for how long Clint would be down. He estimated almost five minutes had passed when Clint finally started showing signs of waking. His head rolled slightly, a low groan crawling up his throat.

"Take it easy, Clint," Phil said gently, putting a hand on Clint's chest to keep him still. Clint needed to take it slow. "You probably have a concussion, kid. So keep still, okay?"

Clint's eyes fluttered weakly, his eyes roaming, disoriented.

"It's okay, Clint," Phil assured him. "You're going to be fine. Just take it easy."

Clint looked up just passed Phil, blinking heavily. His head fell to one side… and then there was a strange tremor that wracked through his body. Phil barely had time to process that when Clint's arms started jerking violently.

"Shit," Phil hissed as he watched the seizure take hold. It took a beat longer than it should have for his first aid training to kick in, just from the shock of it all. A quick scan told him there wasn't anything in their immediate surroundings that could hurt Clint. Then he carefully shifted Clint onto his side, bracing Clint with a hand on his shoulder, though mindful not to impede any of Clint's movements.

And then Phil was forced into another painful waiting game.

Thankfully the seizure was short lived. Roughly two and a half minutes and Clint's limbs finally began to relax. Phil let out a long, low sigh.

"Okay," Phil said quietly as he rolled Clint back onto his back. "No more surprises today, okay, kid?"

Clint was blinking vacantly, still not quite conscious but not quite unconscious either. But finally, his head shifted toward Phil, seeming to really focus on him for the first time. His brow furrowed in confusion.

"What… 're you doin' up there?"

Phil huffed a relieved laugh. "I'm up here, because you're down there."

"Huh?" Clint hummed.

"Don't worry about it," Phil assured him with a smile. "Do you think you could sit up?"

"Um," Clint murmured.

"Okay, nice and easy," Phil said as he threaded an arm behind Clint's shoulders, slowly lifted his upper body up. Clint swayed unsteadily and Phil braced him, letting him get his bearings. "Okay, here we go, going up." He slung one of Clint's arms over his shoulders and wound his own arm around Clint's waist. Moving very slowly, Phil lifted them both up, bracing Clint when he faltered.

"Wha' happ'ned?" Clint slurred.

"I think you hit your head, buddy," Phil told him. "C'mon, can you move your legs? Just a couple sets and you can lay in your cot. It's way more comfortable than the floor, I promise."

Clint shuffled his feet, helping Phil slightly as he pulled Clint over to the cot. He lowered Clint down as slowly as he could, helping him lay on the cot. Phil went and grabbed the pillow from his own cot and slid it under Clint's head along with his pillow, propping him up a little more.

"Okay," Phil said as he perched on the edge of the cot. "Our evac should be here soon. So just take it easy, okay?"

"S'rry, Ph'l," Clint murmured.

Phil smiled. "It's okay, Clint. It's nothing we can't handle. Just rest, kid."


	11. Stitches

**Author's Note:**Thank you so very much to HHaines, GloriousPurpose12, and m klindt for taking the time to review the last chapter! It really means a lot to me!

* * *

**Stitches**

"You know, I can help with that."

"I'm fine," Natasha Romanoff said stiffly from the other side of the safehouse, her gaze remaining steadily on her bloodied side.

Clint sighed, but kept his distance. It was his first mission alone with Natasha, without Phil there as a buffer. When they were on mission, they were deadly, they were in complete sync with each other, they were a near perfect team. It was these awkward moments when their lives weren't in danger where they hadn't figured each other out yet.

The mission had been a success, but it had left them both a little worse for the wear. Clint was sitting in a chair near the kitchen table, his feet propped up on another chair in an attempt to take the pressure off his either fractured or broken ribs. Natasha had taken a deep gash from a hunting knife, started just to one side of her navel and twist down around her hip almost to the small of her back.

Natasha had retreated over to her cot and Clint had watched as she had pulled up her shirt just enough to get to the wound and taped a bandage firmly over the wound, twisting awkwardly in order to see the whole thing. He was confused when she pulled out and organized supplies for stitches, wondering why she bothered with a bandage if she was just going to stitch it. But her strategy quickly became clear to him. She peeled back a little of the bandage in order to make her first stitch. Then she pulled the bandage back a little further for the second stitch. The strategy effectively kept pressure on the parts of the gash that she hadn't yet stitched.

It made a lot of sense for someone who was used to working alone and taking care of their own injuries. Clint was actually a little jealous that he hadn't thought of the strategy himself back in his solo days before SHIELD.

Clint had been silent until after the second stitch, when Natasha had to start contorting her body in an attempt to see the wound without leaning over and simultaneously blocking the injury. That was when he offered his help, though Natasha's response had been predictable. Ever since being liberated from the Red Room, Natasha had been vehemently against receiving medical help from anyone in SHIELD unless it was extremely dire circumstances.

Clint understood the aversion. When he had first come to SHIELD he had done the same thing. It had been ingrained in him that anyone entering his personal space wanted to do him harm, that he rebelled hard against allowing doctors anywhere near him. But now, for the first time, he truly understood Phil's frustration with him in those early days.

Clint quietly watched Natasha tie two more stitches into her own skin. The fifth one was really posing a problem for her though. Clint watched her struggle for a minute to find an angle that would work, wincing as she did so.

"Please let me help?" Clint finally said.

Natasha didn't move for a long minute, still hunched over oddly in a way that had to be painful with her injury. Clint could almost see her considering very carefully how much she really needed to stitch up the wound.

"I get it," Clint said carefully. "You don't like people in your space because it's never ended well. I used to be the same way before Phil found me. I know that it takes a lot to let someone in and that it has to happen in your own time. But you are bleeding and we've still got hours to go before we get evac'd. And I dunno if you know this, but I've got really steady hands." He smiled as he lifted his hands.

Natasha sighed heavily, which also elicited another wince. Then she mechanically straighten up. "I guess… I could use…" Natasha took a deep breath. "...a little help."

"I think I might be of some assistance," Clint said, feeling relieved he didn't have to watch Natasha continue to struggle. He dropped his feet off of the chair, grimacing as pain shot through his chest. He sent Natasha an apologetic look. "Do you mind coming over here?"

Natasha sized him up for a moment. Then she gathered her supplies and pushed herself heavily to her feet. She was the picture of confidence as she crossed the room, but Clint didn't miss the way that her intense gaze never wavered from him. She set the supplies on the table and then carefully sat in the chair his feet had just vacated. Clint reached over to the first aid kit and grabbed a packet of sanitizing wipes to clean his hands.

He turned back to Natasha, who was still squarely facing him. He waited patiently. Finally, she took a deep breath as she slowly turned sideways in the chair to give Clint access to her wound. As she pulled up her shirt again, he eyed her work. The first two stitches were perfect. The second two were noticeably more sloppy. Clint was even more relieved that she finally allowed him to help.

"It looks like you need three more," Clint said, visually mapping out how he wanted to stitch the gash. Natasha glanced over had him. "Is that okay?"

Natasha studied him. "If that's what you think." Her tone was rigidly neutral.

Clint easily threaded the needle and then turned back. "I need to use both hands," he told her. "Once braced need to the gash and the other to put the stitch in. Is that okay?"

Natasha stared at him for a long moment and Clint thought he saw a hint of surprise in her gaze. Finally she nodded.

"Okay," Clint said briskly. "Here we go." He didn't miss the way that her muscles tensed at his touch. He worked quickly but steadily. "You know, I almost decked the first doctor who tried to give me a shot," he said conversationally, trying to lessen the tension in the room. "Well, the first shot I was conscious for anyway. I had an… _incident_… at the circus where I had to go to the hospital, but I fairly incapacitated when I got there so I didn't get the chance hit the doctor who gave me shots and IVs and stuff. Okay, one down, two to go. Ready?"

He waited for Natasha to nod her permission before he started on the next stitch. "I think it was about a year after I joined SHIELD before I didn't need him in the room with me when I needed the infirmary for whatever reason. There are still doctors in that infirmary that I won't see. It's been years, but if I get a bad vibe off of a doctor I still can't handle it. Phil says that it's okay, that I should have a say over who gets in my personal space. Two down, one to go. Not so bad, right? Ready for the last one?"

Natasha nodded quicker his time. "Phil says I have a talent for stitches, but only for other people. I've stitched up Phil a few times, which he's always surprised because he claims the stitches that I do on myself are deplorable. Which I find offensive. I mean, it's way easier when you can see what you're doing, right? I think the ones that I've done on myself are admirable, all things considered." He paused as he tied off the last stitch. "And there we go, all done."

Natasha was immediately up and out of the chair. She twisted around to get a glimpse of Clint's work. She started back over to the cot… but then paused and looked back at him, her gaze softening slightly.

"Thank you," she said quietly. And then she turned and walked away.

Clint smiled as he watched her go. Baby steps. He knew better than anyone that sometimes you just needed to take baby steps.


	12. Don't Move

**Author's Note: **Special shout out to **GloriousPurpose12** and **Amie88 **for taking the time to review the last chapter! You guys are the best!

* * *

"**Don't Move"**

"Don't move!"

"Wasn't planning on it, Cap," Clint said, still slightly breathless. "At least not in the immediate future. Ideally, I'd like to eventually though."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you stepped on a landmine, Legolas," Tony said as he landed nearby, the impact much more controlled than usual.

"Well, I thought it mind liven up the day a bit," Clint growled with a glare.

"I won't deny that this is exciting," Tony started as he headed toward Clint.

"Stark!" Clint heard Natasha's voice coming from behind him, but didn't dare even turn his head to look. "Don't approach with the suit. We have no idea how sensitive this thing is."

"Fine, fine," Tony sighed as he stopped. With a hiss, the suit opened and Tony stepped from it, leaving it in sentry mode as he approached.

Clint moved just his eyes as he looked around. Steve had been the first by his side, and now Tony stood beside him. Natasha finally appeared from behind him and had Bruce in tow. With the danger now passed, and Tony's scans showing that Clint's luck was that he had stepped on the only landmine in the area, the entire team had converged on Clint and his predicament. Clint could still feel the trigger of the mine digging into the soul of his boot, could still remember hearing the click of the mine engaging, the noise likely saving his life as it had brought him to a sharp stop.

Clint wanted to shift uncomfortable under the critical stares of his teammates, but his muscles were locked in place. The smallest shift of weight could cause this thing to blow, and it looked like he would take most of his team with him right now.

"Well?" Clint said impatiently after a minute of awkward silence.

"Tony?" Steve prompted as he shifted his gaze to their mechanic.

"I need to get a look at the thing to have any kind of idea if it can be diffused without sending Robin Hood sky high," Tony said thoughtfully, crouching down and cocking his head at Clint's boot, as if he could tell anything just by looking at it.

"Sooner is probably better than later," Clint said, his tone taking on an unintentionally sharp note. He was already starting to feel the muscles in his legs starting to cramp painfully. It was his front foot that had hit the mine and now his back foot was stuck a generous step behind him, his weight distributed awkwardly and unevenly between the two.

"Okay, Cap," Tony said briskly, finally getting down to business as he carefully moved forward toward the left side of Clint's boot. "Help me dig down next to this thing so we can see what we're dealing with here."

Clint deliberately kept his gaze up, not wanting to watch the delicate process that could kill them all with the wrong move. His eyes wandered around to his teammates again. Bruce would be fine, Hulk would make damn sure of that. Steve would probably be worse for the wear, but he'd likely pull through with the aid of his super-soldier serum. But Natasha and Tony…

Clint swallowed thickly. "You guys probably shouldn't be standing this close." He said it as a blanket statement, not wanting to admit that he desperately wanted to send Natasha away, he selfishly found it harder to send Tony away, knowing that he was his best chance of Clint walking away from this.

"We're not leaving you here," Natasha said firmly, glaring at him for even suggesting such a thing. She glanced down. Were his legs starting to shake? He couldn't even bring himself to look down and see. "How are your legs holding up?"

"I'm suddenly wishing I did more lunges and squats in my life," Clint said with a humorless laugh.

Natasha rolled her eyes but couldn't help the half smile that graced her lips.

"What kind of timeframe are we working with here, Barton?" Tony called up to him as they worked. "How long can you hold that sexy lunge of yours?"

Clint considered this carefully. This wasn't just for his benefit, but for the benefit of everyone in the immediate vicinity. He winced as a minute shift in his leg muscles caused a shock of pain to run up his entire body.

Clint took a deep, steadying breath. "I'll hold it as long as I can. But I'm likely going to get muscle spasms at some point, I'll have no control over that. We're looking at another twenty, maybe thirty minutes."

Clint was intimately familiar with staying completely still and what that did to his muscles. He had to be as a sniper. He could spend hours to days lying behind a sniper rifle and knew how to flex his muscles to avoid cramps and weakness. If he needed to sit behind the rifle, he knew the best positions that would maximize the amount of time before he would be forced to shift.

He had already been stuck in this position for about ten or fifteen minutes now. He knew that another thirty minutes was really going to be pushing it for keeping any involuntary muscle spasms in check.

"How's it look?" Natasha asked, looking down toward where Tony and Steve were working around the mine.

Tony sighed. "It's well done. The mechanism is extremely sensitive. If Barton so much as sneezes we're gonna have a real big problem. There's also a truly excessive amount of firepower down here. If it goes off, I'd estimate that anyone within a fifty foot radius would be fucked."

"Can you disarm it?" Natasha asked.

There was a very long, very heavy pause. Clint squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to calm his breathing, willing his pounding heart to slow.

"Okay," Tony said finally as he stood up and headed for his suit, calling orders back over his shoulder. "I'm going to get some tools. Banner, I'm going to need an extra set of eyes, you'll be with me. Romanoff, I'm gonna need your small hands, so you'll be with me too. Rogers, you'll be useless to me, you can keep Barton company."

Tony returned a minute later with some tools he had pulled from his suit. He disappeared from Clint's line of sight, taking Natasha and Bruce with him.

"It'll be okay," Steve tried to assure him. "Tony will be able to disarm it."

"Yeah, if I don't blow us all to kingdom come first," Clint murmured, choosing to simply ignore the slight tremor in his voice.

"Here," Steve said taking a step closer so that he was right next to Clint, closer than Clint usually liked anyone to be. It took Clint a long moment before he shifted his gaze to see that Steve was holding out his arm. "Just for balance."

Clint took a deep breath. He moved his arm haltingly, mindful of how each small movement affected his distribution of weight. After every tiny movement he would pause to make sure he could continue to hold his position. Finally, he was able to cautiously wrap his fingers around Steve's forearm. He was extremely careful about not giving in to the instinct to shift any of his aching weight onto Steve, but did as Steve advised and just used the connection to help with his balance.

"Good," Steve praised soothingly. Clint shifted his gaze to Steve, desperately hoping to absorb some of his calm. "You can do this, Clint. Just focus." He paused as if waiting for Clint to say something. "You can do that. Right?" he prompted.

"Right," Clint said, though his tone wavered unsteadily. He closed his eyes again, feeling a hysterical laugh creeping its way up his throat at how extraordinarily messed up the entire situation was.

"Clint, look at me." He opened his eyes and slowly shifted his gaze to Steve's determined face. "We're all here with you-"

"You shouldn't be," Clint said suddenly, his voice thin as he cut off anything Steve had been about to say. "You shouldn't risk it, none of you should risk it."

"Hey, we're risking it for you, because you'd do the same for any of us," Steve said firmly. "We all came here voluntarily, and we're _all _going to walk away from this together."

Clint gave a very small nod. "Thanks," he said quietly.

Steve smiled reassuringly.

The minutes ticked by. Steve tried to keep Clint's mind occupied by carrying on a conversation, but more and more Clint's focus drifted to the muscles in his legs. The cramps were working their way up his calves, through his thighs and were now beginning to take hold of his lower back. He knew that once his back muscles started to weaken it was going to be all over.

"How's it goin' down there," Clint asked tightly, cutting off anything Steve might have been saying.

"Almost there," Tony said distractedly.

"You said that five minutes ago," Clint pointed out.

"There was an unexpected safety mechanism that I had to bypass," Tony said. "We're really almost there this time."

Clint gripped Steve's arm tighter. "Might want to hurry it up, Stark."

"You can't rush perfection, Barton."

"Just take it easy," Steve tried to assure Clint. "We're almost home free."

Clint took several deep, steadying breaths, but the pain was finally started to take hold of him. There wasn't much time. They weren't going to make it. They should have left him when they had the chance.

"Okay!" Clint blinked in surprise as Tony very suddenly popped up in his line of sight. If all his muscles hadn't been locked up he probably would have flinched. "That should do it!"

"Should?" Clint echoed skeptically.

"Should," Tony confirmed with an enthusiastic nod. "Only one way to find out though." He shot a pointed look down at Clint's foot.

Clint sent a panicked look around at his teammates still surrounding him. "Shouldn't you-"

"We're staying right here," Natasha said resolutely before he could even finish the statement.

Clint sucked in a shallow breath. "Okay," he said faintly on the exhale.

"On three?" Steve asked. Clint could only nod. "One… two… three."

Clint wasn't sure he so much as stepped off the mine as his legs finally collapsed out from under him, sending him crashing to his knees with a pained yelp. Hands braced him on either side to keep him upright, and for a long while he just sat there, gulping in air as agonizing spasms tore through the muscles of his lower body.

It wasn't until the pain finally started to dull that he finally comprehended… there had been no explosion. They were still alive.

"Clint?" He focused on Natasha's worried face.

"Muscle cramps," he murmured by way of explanation.

"I can get you some muscle relaxers back at the jet," Bruce assured him.

"Okay, can we get the hell out of here now?" Tony said impatiently, though at a glance even Clint could see the relief in his features.

Steve had to haul Clint to his feet as his muscles still spasmed and protested. Both Steve and Natasha supported him as they slowly but steadily made their way back to the jet. As Clint was finally lowered onto a cot in the back of the Quinjet, he was pretty sure he had never felt so relieved to lay down in his life.

That was something he would probably never take for granted ever again for as long as he lived.


	13. Adrenaline

**Author's Note:**Thank you so much to **BlooAngels** and **Lesfont25 **for reviewing the last chapter! Apologies in advance for this chapter. Felt a little so-so about today's prompt, probably should have gone with an alternative. I promise tomorrow will be better!

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**Adrenaline **

Every SHIELD safehouse was set up basically the same. It was always one big room - except for the bathroom for obvious reasons. The majority of the space was dedicated to mission prep, with high tech weaponry, high powered computers, and an extensive first aid kid.

The living section of the safehouses always usually like afterthoughts. There was always a little kitchen set up, but half the time there wasn't even an oven or burners to use, making them reliant on microwave meals. On the same side as the small kitchen area there were always a couple cots shoved into a corner.

Tactically, it was ideal to have the big, open room. In the event that the safehouse was compromised, there was easy access to any of the escape points from anywhere in the room. However, in practice, the set up could cause significant tension between agents who were forced to live in excessively close quarters for the duration of a mission that could last anywhere from days to weeks. There were countless horror stories about agents at each others' throats over trivial things such as sleeping patterns or eating habits.

Thankfully, for the most part Clint and Phil worked and lived mostly conciliatingly while on long, drawn out missions. _Mostly_, being the key word. They certainly weren't immune to normal disagreements that came with living in such close quarters under tense circumstances. And there was one issue in particular that usually caused tension between them.

Phil and Clint had very different sleeping patterns while on assignment. Admittedly, it was because they had very different responsibilities while they were on mission. In the days leading up to a hit, Phil didn't sleep much. He was up late into the nights doing research and organizing data and making damn sure that they were damn prepared with contingency plans on top of contingency plans. There was never an issue with this, since Clint slept like a rock on those nights, completely dead to the world.

It was the night right before a hit when they struggled time and time again. At that point, Phil generally accepted that they were as prepared as they could be and that the best thing would be to get a good night's sleep in order to be sharp for carrying out the mission. And it was also at that point that Clint apparently decided that he had enough sleep and was generally up most of the night. Not just up… but moving around the safehouse with restless energy. And Phil wasn't nearly the heavy sleeper that Clint was.

"Seriously?" Phil mumbled through the fog of sleep as yet another noise pulled him further away from unconsciousness. He squinted blearily out from under the pillow he had thrown over his head hours before.

"Sorry." Clint's voice floated from somewhere beyond Phil's line of sight.

"I'm gonna start crushing sedatives into your dinner the night before a hit," Phil threatened, though the authority behind the threat was likely undercut by his slurred words and the fact that his voice was partly muffled by the pillow.

"You've been saying that for years," Clint pointed out with an annoying amount of levity.

Phil squinted at the digital clock on the small nightstand next to his cot. Two twenty-four a.m. How in the hell could Clint sound so awake at this time of night?

"What're you doing?" Phil asked, pushing the pillow off his head and looking in the direction of Clint's voice.

"This is the quietest activity I could think of, Phil," Clint said, his tone already sharply defensive. "It's not my fault a strong breeze could wake you up."

Phil had to crane his head to see over into the small kitchen area. Clint was at the kitchen table with his bow and a variety of arrows spread out in front of him, working by the light of one of the industrial lanterns from the supply closest. It wasn't a bright as turning on one of the big, overhead lights, but it still stung Phil's eyes.

Phil sighed heavily. "You already inspected all that," he griped. "And anyway, didn't you say there wasn't much point in doing bow maintenance until right before you use it?"

"I wanted to make sure these new trick arrows are fitting right."

Phil rolled his eyes. "You've tested them. And retested them. And tested them again. They all work fine. Please, just go to sleep."

"I'll try and be quieter."

Phil sighed heavily. Then, with a groan, he pushed himself up and shifted so that his bare feet hit the cold floor. After taking a moment to allow himself get his bearings, he stood and shuffled over to where Clint sat, his eyes on his work, not so much as a glance at Phil as he approached. He blinked blearily at the assortment of equipment spread out on the table.

But then something caught Phil's eye. While Clint's hands worked steadily, his right leg was bouncing rapidly under the table with barely contained energy. As Phil stared at the motion - his foot bouncing so quickly it was practically a continuous vibration - it slowly dawned on his fogged brain what the real problem was.

"Want to spar?"

Clint blinked up at him, confused. "What?"

"Want to spar?" Phil repeated calmly.

"You want to spar at two-thirty in the morning?" Clint asked skeptically.

"You clearly have some adrenaline you need to work off," Phil said. "That adrenaline will be a good thing tomorrow, but tonight it's not productive. It's okay for you to let go of it. So, let's work it out. Okay?" Clint just stared, blinking in confusion. "This offer is only good for the next twenty seconds. Then I'm going back to bed."

Finally, Clint smiled. "Okay."

Phil returned the smile. "Alright, go get the sparring equipment before I change my mind."


	14. Stay Quiet

**Author's Note:** Whoops! Fell a little behind again! Yesterday was just not my day haha. Thank you Lesfont25, anaticulapraecantrix, and GloriousPurpose12 for reviewing the last chapter! Very much appreciate your comments, they definitely help keep me going!

* * *

"**Stay Quiet"**

As Steve firmly tied off the makeshift bandage, a low groan rumbled from Clint's chest.

"Stay quiet," Steve pleaded so lowly that it wasn't much more than a breath.

Steve paused, straining his ears to try and detect the inevitable footsteps that would signal that their time was up. However, by some miracle, the area remained silent. Steve let out a silent breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. He focused back on Clint, who was pale and covered in a sheen of sweat. He was breathing heavily, but managed to choke off any audible panting.

They needed to get the hell out of here. Nothing else mattered in that moment. The gunshot wound in Clint's leg changed everything and Steve couldn't bring himself to care about anything else.

Not to mention, if it weren't for Steve being too focused on the mission and not worried about his own safety, Clint wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place.

_Okay, okay, okay, _Steve thought, trying to calm himself down and focus. They needed to get out of here as quietly as possible, because Steve couldn't take on this entire compound on his own. Getting out was going to be tricky though, since Clint was seriously injured and the entire compound was looking for them.

While Steve had been trying to stem his panic, Clint had taken several deep, steadying breaths. He shifted to stow his bow in it's compartment in quiver. Then he reached back and grabbed a wickedly sharp arrow from his quiver.

"We can't use firearms, they'll be too loud and will bring the entire compound down on us," Clint whispered. "I'll need you to support me and I can take out hostiles with arrows as we go. We shouldn't have much farther to get to the mark."

Steve stared at Clint, blinking blankly as what he was saying slowly sunk in. "We're not finishing this mission," he whispered, unsure why that fact wasn't obvious.

Clint gave him an equally blank and confused look. "Why not?"

Again, Steve had to stare and take a long moment to process what Clint was staying. His gaze dropped down pointedly to Clint's crudely bandaged leg, suddenly wondering just how much blood he was losing and how long it took for something like delerium to set in.

"You were shot," Steve said slowly.

Clint glanced down at his leg. Even though his features were tense with pain, he somehow still managed to see unconcerned about the actual injury itself "Yeah, so? It's not like it hit an artery."

"Yeah, but-"

Suddenly, Clint's gaze sharpened and in the next breath he had adjusted his grip on the arrow and flung it like a throwing knife over Steve's shoulder. Steve whipped around in time to see the arrow buried in the neck of a hostile that had discovered their hiding place in the dark shadows under a set of stairs and had been coming up behind him. As Steve turned back to Clint, he saw that he had already drawn another arrow.

"Stay quiet, remember?" Clint reminded him softly - in his confusion and distraction, Steve realized that his voice had raised above a whisper - with a pained smirk. "Now help me up. We need to finish this damn thing before I pass out."

Steve sighed to himself. His two options were apparently to either carry Clint through the rest of the mission, or drag him out of here against his will.

"If you pass out, I'm calling this mission," Steve warned, despite how laughably ridiculous it sounded.

"Fine, I'll abide by that," Clint relented impatiently as he held out a hand. "Let's go."

Steve carefully slid in next to Clint, threading an arm behind him. Clint dropped his head and Steve could see him steeling himself for what was likely going to be an agonizing shift. Finally, Clint nodded and Steve slowly and steadily lifted him up to his feet. He watched Clint carefully, the way that his jaw clenched, the way that he squeezed his eyes shut. But impressively, not even a low groan could be heard.

Clint took a moment to gather himself before he opened his eyes, his gaze clear and steady, ready to get back to work.


	15. Scars

**Author's Note:** Yay! Two in one day! Catching up a little! :)

* * *

**Scars**

Clint's leg bounced restlessly under the table. He had been relieved to find a table in the back corner of the coffee shop, the fact that his back was to a wall being a comfort. His eyes flicked across the shop to wear he knew Natasha was sitting a strategic distance away. She had tied her red hair up into a ponytail and thrown a ball cap over top to downplay the easily recognizable feature. She had outright refused to let him come alone, but at least he had convinced her to give him some space.

He drummed his fingers anxiously on the side of the still full coffee cup on the table. He had ordered the coffee out of habit more than anything rather than a desire to actually drink it. He was already feeling uncomfortably jittery as it was, he didn't need any help in that department.

Clint checked his watched… again. He was late. Of course he was late. Maybe he wouldn't show up at all. Would that really be a relief though? Wasn't it better to just get this over with?

Clint lifted his gaze as the bell on the front door chimed. He sucked in a sharp breath. Barney Barton walked in, his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He sent a quick look around the semi-crowded coffee shop, and when he spotted Clint, a tentative smile crossed his face.

Clint didn't return the smile.

Barney headed for the counter and ordered himself a black coffee. Clint watched intently as Barney dug deep into his pockets and shoveled a handful of coins onto the counter, carefully counting out the coins to pay for his drink.

Clint straightened in his chair as Barney made his way over and slid into the seat across from him.

"Hey, baby bro," Barney said, making an effort to sound upbeat. "It's been awhile."

"Yep," Clint said flatly, popping his lips on the 'p' thoughtfully. "Been about three years, four months and eight days. Not since that time you lost your ass at that illegal racetrack and the bookie snapped three of your fingers."

Barney laughed uncomfortably, dropping his gaze. "Uh, yeah, yeah, not my finest moment." He paused to take a sip of coffee. "I forgot how sharp that memory of yours is, bud."

"Yeah, it's a bitch sometimes," Clint murmured on a heavy sigh. He fiddled absently with his coffee cup as Barney took another sip.

"So, I caught some of that craziness in New York last year," Barney said. "I was out in Arizona at the time, but it was all over the news. Pretty cool."

Clint arched an eyebrow. "_Cool_ isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe an alien invasion that just about wiped us out."

Barney laughed nervously. "No, I didn't mean _cool_, I just meant… you know…"

"Why don't we just get to it, Barney," Clint said. "What do you need from me this time?"

"Ah, c'mon," Barney groaned with an uncomfortable smile, shaking his head as he cupped his hands around his cup. "Don't be like that."

"Yeah, I'm gonna be like that," Clint snapped. "Because why pretend this is more than what it is. I'm not wasting my energy on small talk when the only reason you ever call is when you need something."

"That was your decision, remember?" Barney shot back. "You're the one that told me to get the hell out of your life."

"Because you tried to kill me!"

"I apologized for that!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Natasha sitting up. Clint took a deep breath.

"I'm not getting into this," Clint sighed, leaning back in his chair and dropping his hands into his lap. "So, tell me what you need now or I'm going to take off."

Barney huffed a heavy breath. "You know, it doesn't have to be like this."

"Yes, it does," Clint said firmly.

There was a long, heavy silence between the two brothers. And then finally, "I've been doing some work out west. It's basically-"

"I don't want to know what the work is," Clint said, waving a dismissive hand. "Just get to the point."

Barney swallowed. "I just…" He scrubbed a hand over his face. "It was supposed to be a sure thing, but the dice just wasn't rollin' for me that night-"

"You need money."

"-and I borrowed some credit to see if I could bounce back, but I swear those dice had to be loaded or somethin'-"

"You need money."

"-and I swear I'll totally pay you back, but I really need to just get my feet under me and this time I'm gonna focus and-"

"Barney," Clint said sharply. "Just tell me how much you need."

Barney paused, biting his lip. "I'm down ten G's, bud."

Clint sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Jesus Christ, Barney."

"I promise, it's the last time," Barney said, a note of pleading in his voice. "I mean, I gotta get my life together-"

"You would think," Clint said, rolling his eyes. "Okay, well, you know I don't have that kind of money, right?"

"Yeah," Barney said, shifted in his seat. "But… I mean… seems like you've got some pretty good friends now, right? I mean, the CEO of Stark Industries…"

Clint shook his head, exasperated. "I'm not asking Tony to give you ten thousand goddamn dollars so that you can pay back whoever it is that you ripped off, get back on your feet and then spend the next three years gambling your life away again."

"C'mon, Clint, we're family," Barney said placatingly.

Clint snorted derisively. "I've got scars that beg to differ, _big brother_." He spat the title as if it were an insult. Clint rubbed his eyes. "Okay, here's what's going to happen." Clint reached back and pulled his wallet out, counting out the cash he had brought specifically for this meeting and tossing it onto the table between them. "I'm going to give you seven hundred dollars. That'll get you a cheap motel to live in for a while and keep you fed while you find a _legitimate _job. You're going to get me the name and info for whatever mob boss you owe that money to, and I will see what I can do about getting him not to murder you."

"It's gonna be different this time," Barney promised as Clint pushed himself up from the table, abandoning his untouched coffee.

"I'm sure," Clint said sarcastically. "Text me with that info. I'm not tracking him down for you."

"Thanks, bud," Barney said, but Clint was already walking away.

"He doesn't deserve it," Natasha said lowly, materializing a step behind Clint as he shoved his way out the door of the shop. "You keep on bailing him out every couple years, but he's never going to change."

"I know," Clint said flatly.

"So… why keep doing it?" Natasha asked.

Clint sighed heavily. "I know family is just a word to him, something to use as leverage. But… I want to be better than that. I guess."

Natasha rolled her eyes, but she smiled. "You are better than him. You're even better than me. I would have kicked his ass in a back alley by now."

Clint huffed a laugh, a smile finally breaking onto his face. "Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. Maybe next time."

"Well, then," Natasha said with a mischievous grin, "I can't wait for next time."


	16. Pinned Down

**Author's Note:**Shout outs to **naticulapraecantrix** and **GloriousPurpose12 **for reviewing the last chapter! Thank you so much! And extra shout out to **GoodCharlotte615** who just started marathoning through the chapters! I really love reading people's reviews, it means a lot to me!

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**Pinned Down**

"_Everybody out! This place is going to be a crater in less than five minutes!_"

Clint hit the treeline at a dead sprint. The raid they had made on the compound had been a success… except for the emergency self-destruct that had been triggered. This was just after they had found a massive amount of TNT under the structure. There wasn't anything to do… but run.

The entire Avengers team had scattered from the different areas of the compound that they had been doing last sweeps in.

"_Everyone, status!_" Steve snapped. "_Romanoff and I are almost one klick out, southeast of the facility."_

"_Thor and I went up and out, we are heading south," _Tony reported.

"I'm maybe half a klick out," Clint reported, dodging between the thick trees, hindering his progress. "Maybe… almost…"

"_What direction?_" Steve asked.

"Uh," Clint said, glancing around, trying to get his bearings. "North. Ish. I think."

"_Tony, Thor, can you-_"

He was cut off by the sound of an explosion. Clint skidding to a stop, whipping around as his looked around frantically. It was far too small and too far away to have been from the compound.

"_Romanoff!"_

"_I'm okay, I'm okay!" _

"What happened?" Clint demanded.

"_Land mines!" _Steve said. "_Careful, Barton!" _

"_You guys, this thing is going down any second!"_

"_Has anyone seen Hulk?"_

Clint turned and started sprinting again. He couldn't worry about anything else now, he needed to get clear of the blast range. He needed to-

The entire world was ripped apart around him. He gasped, his brain struggling to catch up with what had happened. He was suddenly on the ground, the world spinning around him, pain lancing through his body.

"_Barton! Report, Barton! Can you hear me?_"

Clint took in a shuddering breath. "I think I… think I found one of those mines you were talkin' 'bout, Cap."

"_Are you okay?_"

"_Guys this thing is heating up, we've got less than a minute!_" Tony shouted.

No time to worry about injuries, he was nowhere near outside the blast range. Clint went to push himself up… and yelped in pain. He looked down. The explosion had brought down a bunch of the trees around him, and his right ankle was pinned solidly down under a particularly large trunk. He tried to pull his ankle free… and whited out for a moment from the pain.

"_Barton!" _

"I'm stuck!" Clint gasped. He tried to pull his foot again, but the pain only worsened. And anyway, there was no way he would be able to clear the blast radius now. "I'm pinned, I can't get my leg out!"

"_Can anyone get to Barton!?" _

No. Clint knew that without having to listen to any of the responses. There wasn't enough time, even Tony and Thor would have to detour around the compound to avoid getting caught up in the blast themselves.

Clint curled in on himself, squeezed his eyes shut, and waited for the inevitable fiery blast to tear through.

He heard the initial detonation. He felt a small impact and then there was the heat rushing over him. But, for some reason, he wasn't burning. Confused, he blinked his eyes open and it took a long minute to really comprehend what the wall of green around him meant. He carefully pushed himself over to get a look at the massive creature looming over him.

"Hey, Hulk," Clint rasped, coughing slightly on the ash in the air. "It's really good to see you."

"Arrows okay?"

Clint gave him a strained smile. "Yeah, Arrows okay. Thanks, big guy. I owe you."

"_Barton?_"

"Still here, Cap," Clint assured him. "Got Hulk to thank for that. Is Nat okay?"

"_Thor got her out, she's got some minor injuries but should be fine. Tony is inbound to you, are you okay?"_

Hulk straightened up, branches and debris that he had protected Clint from falling off his back. Clint carefully took stock of himself.

"I've likely got a broken ankle, but other than that I'm shockingly intact. Still pinned-"

With a casual swing of his massive arm, Hulk tossed the tree that had been pinning Clint down. Clint groaned at the sudden rush of blood back to his leg, causing the pain to spike.

"Nevermind. No longer pinned. Ready for evac."


	17. Stay With Me

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much **GloriousPurpose12** and **GoodCharlotte615** for reviewing the last chapter! I appreciate the crap out of both of you, I very much enjoy reaching your thoughts on each chapter!

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"**Stay With Me"**

"Jesus, Clint!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Clint panted waving Phil off.

But strangely, Phil didn't seem to hear him. As he ran over, he dropped to his knees next to Clint and started pulling at Clint's bulletproof vest.

"Phil, Phil, stop, I'm fine," Clint insisted as he went to push himself up from the wall that he had slumped against.

"We need emergency evac. on my location right now," Phil said frantically into his comm.

"Phil, calm down," Clint commanded, trying to push him away. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Phil snapped. "Clint, you've been stabbed."

"What, no I wasn't," Clint said confused, glancing down at himself.

His vision was momentarily obscured as Phil pulled the vest up over Clint's head. But as he did so, Clint suddenly felt a sharp bite of pain in his side, taking him so completely by surprise that a yelp escaped his throat.

"Just take it easy," Phil said. "Stay still. The med team is on their way."

"But… how?" Clint mumbled. He looked down and finally spotted the black hilt of a knife protruding from his side.

Clint tried to go over the events in his head, but it was already starting to seem fuzzy. They were taking down an entire organization for human trafficking. Clint had swept through the entire compound and had taken out or incapacitated all of the thugs through the compound, with Phil backing him up. But then they had taken on the Inner Circle. The final stand had turned into hand to hand combat… and… and then… what had happened next?

Clint blinked around as the world was suddenly taking on a strange, floating quality. And was the air around him suddenly thicker?

Phil was saying something to him. Clint knew that because he could see Phil's lips moving, and he was aware of noises, but somehow the words just weren't registering in his brain. He looked back down at his side. Did the hilt of that knife look bigger all of a sudden? Maybe he should just pull it out, because if he pulled it out then maybe the pain would stop.

But as he reached for it, Phil grabbed his wrist and stopped him. But goddamnit, the pain was getting so much worse, he needed it to stop, it had to stop…

"Clint," Phil's low voice finally filtered through to him. Clint wrenched his gaze back up to Phil. Clint's head suddenly felt heavy, listing to one side, but Phil reached up a hand to the side of his head to steady him and keep his gaze up. "Keep still, okay? Just hang in there, help will be here soon, I promise."

Clint tried to swallow, but his mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with cotton and his chest felt like it was constricted in a vice. His eyes felt heavy. Maybe he should just sleep. Maybe he could just go to sleep and when he woke up things would be better.

"No, no, no, Clint, stay with me. Okay? Keep your eyes open. Please stay with me, okay, kid? I just need you to hang in there a little longer. You can do that, I know you can."

Clint dragged in a breath. Phil needed him to stay awake. He could do that for Phil, couldn't he?

"Shi', ih hur's," Clint mumbled, his words slurring together.

The hand on the side of his head disappeared and then reappeared in Clint's hand, lifting it up into Clint line of sight.

"Squeeze my hand, Clint. You can do it." Clint took a moment to focus before he did his best to flex his fingers. "Good, good job. See? You're going to be fine. You're going to stay with me. Right? Right?" He squeezed Clint's hand encouragingly.

"Righ'," Clint breathed, gripping Phil's hand tighter. "Think Imma s'ay wi't you."

Phil smiled. "Thank you, Clint."

* * *

As Clint drifted back toward consciousness, he could hear a slow, but steady EKG machine beeping. He blinked his eyes open, watching a stark white hospital room slowly float into focus. The events that led to him lying in this bed, thick bandages packed into his side, wires stuck to his chest, a clear mask over his nose and mouth. But one element was still crystal clear.

Clint looked around the room, distressed for a moment when he thought that he was alone in the room. But then he craned his head and finally glimpsed Phil standing in the doorway to the room. He had his back to Clint, having a low conversation with one of the nurses.

Clint took a deep breath, reaching up and pulling the mask down so his weakened voice would carry.

"Phil." Phil whipped around at the sound of his voice, a look of concern melting to one of relief. "Stay wi't me?"

Phil smiled as he crossed the room, settling himself into a well worn seat at Clint's bedside. "Always, kid."


	18. Lost

**Author's Note: **Thank you again to **anaticulapraecantrix** and **GoodCharlotte615 **for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are awesome!

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**Lost**

Clint crouched silently on the rock protruding part way out into the river. He watched the rapids carefully, eyeing the fish that swam by. Finally, he struck out with the sharpened bamboo stick he had fashions, spearing one of the fish swimming by. He studied it for a moment, turning it on the stick. It looked healthy enough. He pinched the tail of this fish with the one he had speared just a few minutes ago and then stood, carefully hopping from rock to rock in order to make it back to shore.

He grabbed the long stick he had left leaning up against a tree on the shore before he started back through the jungle. He used the stick to probed the underbrush before he walked through it, hoping to scare away any venomous snakes or spiders as he headed back to camp.

The camp was set up in a small clearing just a few minutes away from the scream. He glanced around to make sure nothing had changed, relieved that everything was just how he had left it. He headed for the small fire that was still burning. He still had the bamboo sticks from the night before, cut down the middle to create a kind of prong that the fish could fit horizontally into. Once both fish were in place, he just had to lay them across the horizontal sticks he had built over the fire and the fish began to cook.

With a decent breakfast underway, Clint turned to the next order of business. He went around the area to check the traps he had set up with sticks, vines and leaves in order to catch any water or dew that he could. He frowned as he found each trap to only have a little bit of water in each. Not exactly what he had been hoping for. Working very carefully, he consolidated all the water into one leap that he cupped to hold the several small gulps he had managed to gather.

"I thought this was supposed to be the damn _rain_forest," he grumbled to himself. He took a couple small sips and then headed for the lean-to that he had built on one side of the small clearing and ducked inside. "Up and at 'em, sunshine."

Initially, there was no movement from Natasha. She lay curled on her side with her back to him, just as he had left her before he had gone for food. Clint knelt next to her, reaching over and putting a careful hand on her shoulder, feeling the heat of the fever radiating off of her. Under normal circumstances, the touch would have brought her lurching back to consciousness, but today it elicited little more than a small flinch.

"C'mon, Nat," he said lowly but firmly, a small note of pleading in his voice. "You gotta get up. I've got breakfast almost ready."

Finally, Natasha shifted her head to look blearily at him over her shoulder. "'M tired," she rasped.

"I know," Clint said sympathetically. "But you've got to drink and eat something. Please, Nat?" She let her head fall back down to its original position, and Clint sighed heavily. "Can you at least sit up some and drink a little water?" He was already reaching over with one hand and gently pulling her onto her back.

She thankfully didn't resist. Instead, she blinked around warily with eyes clouded by fever. "Where are we?"

"Taking a little vacation in the Amazon rainforest," Clint said, his voice strained. It was a question that she was asking more and more often, and that certainly wasn't a good sign. "C'mon, Tasha, I need you to drink something, okay?"

He threaded a hand under her shoulders and used it to leverage her up as gently as he could. She groaned and grimaced at the action, causing Clint's heart to twist. He hated causing her more pain. He brought the leaf to her lips as she seemed to come back to herself a bit as the water hit her lips, drinking greedily until the leaf was empty. Clint sighed in relief as he discarded the leaf and then carefully helped her sit up more, leaning her up against the tree the lean-to was built into.

"Did you get some?" she asked suddenly, her voice small and childlike.

Clint looked at her in confusion, but saw that she wasn't looking at him. He followed her gaze to the water leaf he had discarded.

"Yeah, I drank some before I came in here," Clint assured her, ignoring the lightheaded feeling that was starting to set in. It wasn't a lie. He had enough to keep him going and Natasha needed it more than he did right now. The air inside the lean-to clung to him thickly, already drawing sweat despite the fact that the sun was barely up yet. "How about we go outside? You'll get a little more air out there."

Natasha mumbled something that Clint couldn't make out, her eyelids sagging as unconsciousness was already pulling at her. Clint sighed, threading one arm behind her shoulder and the own scooping under her legs, lifting her and ducking out of the shelter. There was a small whine of protest, but other than that she didn't react much.

Clint didn't move her far, instead he just leaned her up against the adjacent side of the tree the shelter was built into. As he settled her back down, his eyes strayed to the bandages packed into her side. The bullet wound actually hadn't initially been terrible, all things considered. It hadn't been too much more than a deep crease. Clint had cleaned it and bandaged it as best as he could the first chance they had gotten, but despite the efforts, after three days of wandering through the jungle, it had become painfully apparent that infection was starting to get the best of her.

Those initial signs of infection had appeared five days ago. There wasn't much that Clint was able to do for it and that fact was gut wrenching. His survival skills were excellent and he could likely live like this for weeks, maybe even months if he had to.

But Natasha was quickly running out of time.

"Feel up to eating something?" Clint asked. It wasn't much, but it was something that he could do. He wasn't surprised when there wasn't an answer.

Clint went to work skinning and carving up the fish with his combat knife. With some coaxing he was able to get her to eat a fair few bites and she even managed to keep it down this time, unlike the night before. That was something at least.

"Okay, I know you're got gonna like this," Clint said after stomping out the fire and crouching down next to Natasha. "But we've gotta move on."

Natasha sighed, her head drifting heavily on her shoulders as she blinked dully. "'M tired."

"I know," Clint said softly. "But we've gotta keep moving."

He hated to do it, but if the rescue team - that may or may not be actually looking for them and may or may not be searching the right area - didn't find him, their next best chance at surviving this was to find some kind of civilization. And the only way to do that was to cover some ground while they could.

They didn't have much in the way of supplies left, so it didn't take Clint long to pack it up. He had his combat knife and his bow, but had long ago run out of arrows. He had a couple sharpened bamboo sticks in his quiver, but they wouldn't work great with their lack of weight. He had Natasha's sidearm, but it was out of ammo.

Once he had all that together, he went back to Natasha, who had drifted off. Gently he shook her awake again, earning low groans in protest.

"Please, Nat," he implored. "I need you to try to walk. Just a little, okay?"

Of course he could carry her, but he couldn't keep that up forever. Also, to be honest, he was starting to wear down as well. While he wasn't nearly as bad off as Natasha, he could feel himself waning day by day. And if he was honest with himself, judging by his numerous mosquito bites, he wouldn't be surprised if he was starting to come down with malaria.

Clint pulled Natasha's arm over his shoulder. "C'mon, here we go. One, two, three." Natasha yelped as Clint lifted her and his chest clenched in sympathy. "Okay, we've just going to walk a little bit. You can do that, right? Right?" He squeezed Natasha encouragingly.

"Jus' a little bit?" Natasha mumbled.

"Yeah, just a little bit," Clint assured her. Her legs moved stiffly and most of her weight was still on Clint, but it was better than nothing. He grabbed a long stick in his free hand in order to probe the undergrowth, and then they were off.

"Where are we?"

"Where would you like to be?" Clint asked. "What's your favorite place in the world Tasha?"

"Hm," Natasha hummed. Her head started to fall.

"Hey," Clint said, shaking her slightly. "If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be? Your favorite place in the world."

"New 'Ealand."

"New Zealand?" Clint said, arching an eyebrow in surprise. "Where in New Zealand?"

"Fiord'nd."

Clint had to think for a minute because he could translate. "Fiordland? I don't think I've ever been. I think we should go. What do you think?"

"Hm."

"Nat? What do you think?"

"Where are we?"

Clint sighed. "We're heading for Fiordland, obviously. Just a little bit farther."

"You sure?"

"Yep, very sure. Just keep walking okay? One foot in front of the other."

Clint tried to keep her talking, but the longer they walked, the more difficult it became. Eventually, he started to feel like he was just being cruel, dragging her around this jungle when it was very likely that they weren't going to get out of here.

And just as he had the thought, a jet screamed by overhead. He was so shocked that almost let Natasha fall. His eyes went frantically to the sky. Was it possible…?

As quickly as he could he set Natasha down against a nearby tree and tore the bow off of his back, nocking one of his bamboo sticks and firing it straight up into the air, through a small gap in the canopy. Then he fired another… and another… and another. It was a laughably small attempt at a flare, but it was all he could do.

When he ran out of bamboo, he just stood as stared up, holding his breath. For a long time, it seemed that the hum of the jet was getting further away. But then… was it closer? Or was that just wishful thinking?

And then, finally, through the gap in canopy he saw the jet as it hovered over them. His gaze narrowed in on the SHIELD insignia on the bottom of the Quinjet.

They were saved.


	19. Asphyxiation

**Author's Note: **Once again, thank you so much to **GloriousPurpose12** and **GoodCharlotte615** for taking the time to review the last chapter! Have I mentioned yet how much I adore you two? :) And overall I have 65 reviews on this entire thing! Nineteen chapters in and that's no small thing! So thank you any and all readers for support this, it's really helped me get back into the swing of things!

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**Asphyxiation**

"_Status!"_

"_Stark and I have successfully infiltrated and captured the ringleader," _Natasha reported. "_Stark is working on shutting down the security and then the rest of you slackers can get in here and start cleaning house." _

"_Funny," _Steve said dryly, slightly out of breath. As it had turned out, getting into the facility had been the easy part. Once the rest of the Avengers split up and provided distractions at various points around the facility, their mark had immediately panicked sent his entire army of henchmen outside in order to confront them. "_Thor, Barton?"_

"_These men were no match for me," _Thor boasted triumphantly. "_I was honestly hoping for more of a challenge."_

"Could use some help over here then!" Clint gasped into his comm. as he ducked a blow and rammed his combat knife into the man's gut, remaining crouched and using the now corpse as a shield to give himself a precious few seconds to catch a breath.

"_Barton?" _Steve prompted.

Clint shoved the body into the next man who ran to confront him. "Perch was compromised," he said as he whirled, tearing the knife from the dead man's gut and throwing it another another. "Getting a bit overrun over here."

Of course the bulk of the army would end up on his side of the facility after he lost his advantage of distance.

"_I'm on my way!" _Steve promised. "_Thor, head for Barton's location!" _

"_On it!" _Thor assured as thunder rumbled. "_Barton, I will be there shortly, just hang on." _

Clint knew how big the compound was and he knew that he had several minutes before even Thor would be able to reach him. He took down two more henchmen, but as he turned to take on a third that was coming at him, he could glimpse nine more men appearing from the direction of the facility.

"Goddamnit," Clint breathed. He was good, but taking on ten armed henchmen after thirty minutes of hard, close combat fighting was pushing him to his limit.

Clint desperately needed distance. He took just a fraction of a second to visually assess his surroundings. There was a good-sized truss bridge about forty feet behind and to his left, spanning the ravine and the white-watered river below.

Clint blocked a heavy punch with both his forearms, pressing the man back and using the momentum to send himself back several steps as well, forcing space between them. A gunshot buzzed passed his ear as the reinforcements came within range and Clint lunged, already knowing more bullets were coming after that miss. He took the opportunity to make a break for the bridge as the bullets continued to fly. His odds were better as a moving target.

As if to personally spite him, a bullet clipped his hip.

"Son of a bitch," Clint hissed. But he didn't dare break stride.

As he hit the bridge, the wooden base creaked ominously, feeling soft and unsteady under his feet. That wasn't a good sign, but it was too late to change his strategy now.

Clint spun around, an arrow already nocked and he let it fly as he immediately drew three more, nocking and firing one at a time in rapid fire. _One down, twothreefour down. _He took a couple steps back and to the side as he drew another three arrows, rapid firing them as well. _Fivesixseven down. _And then again, ignoring his protesting muscles. _Seveneightnine down. _

So close. He came so damn close to coming out victorious. If there had been one less man in pursuit, Clint would have been fine. After he let that ninth arrow fly, he had time to draw the tenth, but he didn't have time to nock it onto his bow. The final man launched himself over the victim of that ninth arrow, bodily crashing into Clint and sending him stumbling backward as he struggled to keep his feet under him. The man slammed Clint into the support of the bridge and Clint's head snapped back against the wooden bar so hard that his vision momentarily whited out. But his hands worked on instinct alone, and he managed to bring the final arrow around and bury it viciously in the man's neck.

Clint could hear the cracking of the barrier behind him as the man's sudden dead weight sagged against him. Without thinking, he pushed the man away, and the leverage needed for that action caused a loud _SNAP. _Clint had practically inhuman balance from his time at the circus, but even he didn't have enough time to compensate for the sudden lack of anything between him and the drop behind him.

Before Clint could form a complete thought, he was in freefall.

There was a flurry of shouting in his comms. but he was far too preoccupied to even begin to comprehend what was being said. As he struggled to turn himself in midair in order to hit the water below feet first, he had enough time to think _Oh shit_ three and a half frantic times in quick succession, which would have given him a better sense of the distance he had fallen if his head hadn't already been so foggy. The barrier hit the water first, quite possibly saving his life as it broke the surface of the water before he hit it.

He must have blacked out because he didn't remember the impact. One minute he was falling, wind whistling past him, and the next he was completely submerged in frigid water. Had he been conscious when he entered the water he had the survival instincts to handle the situation. But he was violently aware that there was water already in his lungs and all logic left him.

He no longer had any conscious control over his lungs. They were spasming painfully, desperately trying to expel the water and take in vital oxygen. He logically knew that this would only kill him faster, but that small voice in his head was completely lost to the blind panic. His chest screamed, burning him from the inside out. Clint knew that he had precious few seconds left and he clawed at the water around him, but suddenly he realized he didn't know up from down.

He wasn't sure how long he was trapped in that state. A few seconds? A few minutes? Several hours? His limbs felt heavy and weren't quite responding like they should. The fog in his head was getting thicker, weighing down any thoughts of trying to survive this. The world was drifting away, the pain was fading.

Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the end.

And then, all at once, the pain returned full force, rocketing to an even more agonizing level. His lungs were twisting in a vice and it took him a long time to realize that he was coughing. It took even longer to realize that in order to cough… there needed to be air.

He heaved the precious air into his lungs and choked water out, all while his chest was screaming painfully. He reached a hand out blindly, trying to force his fogged brain to catch up with the turn of events. His left hand jammed hard into solid ground next to his right shoulder. His right hand was pinned awkwardly underneath him. As he finally pried his eyes open, he realized that he was lying on his right side, someone's hand braced firmly on his left shoulder in order to keep him steady and leaning him forward slightly in order to accommodate the water he was still choking up.

He tried to push the ground away, instincts screaming at him to sit up and take in the situation around him to determine whether or not he was still in danger. But the hand on his shoulder held him firm, and though some small logical voice in the back of his head told him it was because his lungs were still desperately trying to clear all the water from them, he felt fresh panic bubbling under the surface.

"Easy, easy, you're okay, you're going to be okay. Get it all up."

Finally, a low and comforting voice filtered into waterlogged ears. Clint could feel his panic beginning to wane. Maybe he wasn't dying after all.

He heaved in a wheezing breath and finally exhaled without any water. Several raspy breaths later and to his immense relief, the pressure on his shoulder finally lessened. He pushed himself over onto his back, blinking water from his eyes as he tried to focus on was what was going on around him. Steve's face came into focus first as he knelt over Clint. He looked shockingly pale and Clint could still see the edge of fear in his eyes. Clint shifted his gaze and saw Thor hovering just behind Steve, his own features also betraying worry and a hint of fear. Also, Clint belatedly realized that Thor was dripping wet.

"Clint?" Steve said.

Clint waved a hand weakly. "S'ill h're."

Steve heaved a sigh. Then he put one hand to his ear, shifting his gaze away slightly. "Yeah, yeah, he's already, he came back around." He paused and a ghost of a smile passed his lips for just a split second. "Romanoff says that if you do that to her again, she's going to kill you herself."

Clint choked on a painful laugh, grimacing as his chest protested profusely at the action. He put a hand to his sternum, suddenly wondering vaguely if he had needed CPR. It would certainly explain why it felt like there was a weight collapsing in on his lungs.

"Just hang in there," Steve said. "Romanoff and Stark are bringing around the Quinjet and we'll get you out of here." He paused, staring at Clint as if he were afraid to look away. "Damn, Clint, you scared the shit out of us," he sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, huffing a humorless laugh.

Clint felt a smirk pulling at his lips. "Jus' tryin' to keep things in'eres'ing, Cap."


	20. Trembling

**Author's Note:**Thank you so much **GloriousPurpose12**, **Amie88** and **avengersashley** for your very kind reviews! So very appreciate it!

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**Trembling**

Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

And then repeat.

The routine had been drilled into him for years. His mentor at the circus had been a harsh man, demanding that eleven year old Clint practice until his fingers bled and his muscles gave out. Anything less than a perfect shot was completely unacceptable. When he was first learning the weapon, there were days when he would be outside all night, shooting arrow after arrow, trying to make just one damn bullseye. Because anything outside of the bullseye was not good enough. Anything less than perfect was failure. That was what Jacques Duquesne ingrained in him over the course of five long years.

Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

And then repeat.

By the time that Clint was thirteen, he could hit that bullseye under any circumstances. He saw that bullseye when he slept. His eyes automatically snapped to that bullseye when he was cleaning the tent or the storage area where it was kept. He was given his own act in the show, the youngest person to have their own act to anybody's recalled knowledge. But the criticisms had only grown worse. The simple bullseye wasn't good enough anymore. It had to be dead center of the bullseye. Then it had to be a moving target. Then it had to be a moving target while blindfolded. There was always something more that he had to strive for. That meant more practice, more reprimands, more and more unattainable expectation.

Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

And then repeat.

Looking back, he really couldn't pinpoint when the bow and arrow had become so intrinsic to who he was as a person. By the time he finally left the circus, Clint could barely let go of his bow. At some point along the line, it had become the most stable thing in his life. It was something he could control, something that he finally could understand. It's something that carried him through his time living on the streets, through getting taken in by SHIELD when he was eighteen, through trying to figure out how he was supposed to live his life after everything he had been through.

Several years after joining SHIELD, Clint had found his new routine, new coping mechanisms, even found support in his handler, Phil Coulson. Some days that was enough. But other days - after a bad nightmare or a less than perfect mission - he fell back into old habits.

Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

And then repeat. Repeat until his fingers bled, repeat until his muscles spasmed, repeat until his legs gave out. Repeat until… after all these years maybe he wasn't really sure what he was trying to accomplish with this anymore.

He wasn't sure how long he had been in the SHIELD shooting range. He had lost track of how many times he had trudged down the range to collect his arrows from the bullseye and started all over again. It was early enough in the morning that he would have the entire place to himself for hours.

But when the inevitable sound of the door scraping open, Clint knew that it had to be decently into the morning.

"Clint."

Clint didn't acknowledge the voice. It wasn't good enough yet, he needed to be better. Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

"The logs say that you've been here since three in the morning. It's almost six, kid."

That didn't matter. He needed to be better. Or maybe he just needed to control something. Because you know what, that damn arrow hit the exact spot that he aimed it every single damn time.

"You have another nightmare?"

Nope. That wasn't something he wanted to think about. He didn't want to think about anything other than the target. Stance. Nock the arrow and grip. Focus. Set up and draw. Inhale. Anchor and hold. Aim. Release and follow through.

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

But strangely, he was having a hard time settling his stance. His arrow slipped and he had to renock it. His focus wavered, the world floating strangely in front of him. He drew the arrow… but why couldn't he get it all the way back? He clenched his jaw and groaned as he tried to pull his draw hand back, but he couldn't get it, he couldn't, he wasn't good enough-

"Clint." Phil was much closer now, close enough to put a gentle hand on Clint's elbow. "You need to stop this. Please."

Clint released the arrow, watching dully as it buried into the floor a few feet away. He gasped in a breath as painful tremors suddenly wracked up his arms. He looked down at his trembling body vaguely, feeling an odd disconnect from himself.

"Hey," Phil said softly, bracing his other hand on Clint's back. "It's okay. Let's find a place to sit down and we can talk. Okay?"

Clint lifted a hand, watching the tremors with a vague interest. It had been a long time since he had reached his physical limit like this. As he turned, a spasm viciously tore through his leg and if it weren't for Phil, Clint would have gone crashing to the floor. Instead, Phil supported Clint and helped him slowly limp back out of the range.

"Sorry, Phil," Clint murmured.

"It's okay, kid. We'll figure this out."


	21. Breathless

**Author's Note:**Apologies for not posting yesterday! My brain was so fried and I was writing this but it just was coming out very bland. Looked at it with fresh eyes today and I think it came out a lot better! I know I'm a few days behind with the overall Whumptober Challenge, but I do plan on finishing! I'll likely just continue posting into November until I get all 31 prompts finished!

As always, shout outs to **Katie MacAlpine** and **GoodCharlotte615** for reviewing the last chapter! I really appreciate it!

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**Breathless**

_You're just lucky they want to take you in alive, _Clint thought bitterly as he ducked a punch and barely got his bow around to block the knife coming at him from the other side.

"You are a fool, Hawkeye," Zane Maddox hissed. "Coming here alone? Thinking that you could take _me _on alone?"

As if on cue, the building suddenly shook with the force from a small explosion. As Clint held the knife at bay, he grinned. "Who said I came alone? I'm just here to keep you occupied."

A horrified look consumed Maddox's face as he realized what was happening. Clint seized the opportunity to take the upper hand, shoving Maddox back and sending him stumbling. Clint pushed his advantage, pursuing the man and using his bow as a staff and forcing Maddox to use his knife defensively to keep from getting pummeled.

"You are done, Maddox," Clint growled. "That explosion means that Stark finished hacking your systems, and the rest of the Avengers are laying waste to your weapons. The only reason that you're still alive is to make sure we get every last one of your snake holes."

"You will pay!" Maddox shrieked as he blocked Clint's bow with his knife and made a wild swing with his other fist, a frenzied look in his eyes.

The sudden shift of the man's demeanor threw Clint off balance, and he used his forearm against his bow in order to shove Maddox away again. Clint took several defensive steps back in order to get some space to regain himself and drew an arrow. If Maddox wasn't going to back down easily, Clint might have to explore the "damaged but alive" contingency that they had discussed during the briefing.

What Clint hadn't anticipated… was the gun. Maddox was a cruel man who enjoyed using knives to do his dirty work, because he liked to be up close and personal. So, when he suddenly brandished a gun from a hidden holster under his jacket, Clint needed a few seconds to adjust. But he didn't get those few seconds.

Shots rang out immediately followed by an explosion of pain that ripped from the middle of his chest. The world tipped wildly around him and he went sprawling to the ground. Clint's brain whited out in agony for just a split second, but he forcefully dragged himself back to reality, his ingrained survival instincts taking over.

Ignoring the pain that tore at his every nerve, he twisted and pulled himself up as much as he could into a defensive position. Without a conscious thought, he nocked the arrow in his hand on his bow, but when he went to draw it the pain almost sent him spiralling into oblivion again. He snapped off the shallow shot to buy him a precious few seconds. As Maddox lunged backward, Clint yanked his sidearm out and fired two shots, taking out each of Maddox's kneecaps. Maddox went to the ground with a spray of blood and agonized screams.

Clint's muscles all released at once, sending him back down to the ground as he gasped in several shallow breaths as he tried to catch up with what had happened. He… had been shot? Right? His hands went to his chest, but even just that small movement caused the pain to skyrocket.

"Thor, Stark, contain Maddox. Clint! Clint, are you okay?"

Clint blinked in confusion, unsure what was happening until Steve's face suddenly entered his field of vision. The team was here. He should be relieved, but all he could think about was the horrible pain that was trying to consume him.

"Clint?" Steve was suddenly gone and Natasha immediately took his place. She was pale, looking him over frantically.

"I… maybe… got shot?" Clint said between gasps for breath, his hands now desperately searching his chest for the wet blood that had to be there.

"Stop, let me," Natasha said briskly, knocked his hands away impatiently. She quickly undid the clasp for Clint's quiver, pushing the straps out of her way. Then she pulled the zipper on his outer uniform to reveal his Kevlar vest underneath. Natasha's hands went to his chest, and even just the light pressure from her searching fingers caused a hoarse groan to claw its way up Clint's throat.

"Your Kevlar is dented, but I don't think it went through," Natasha reported cautiously. Her brow furrowed. "There are several dents. Jesus, were you playing target practice in here?"

Clint made a pained, coughing noise that was supposed to be a laugh, but didn't come anywhere close. "Turns out he's… he's a decent shot."

"Okay, we need to get this vest off before we move him," Natasha said firmly. "See what we're really dealing with here."

"You guys got this?" came Tony's voice from somewhere beyond Clint's small world, which at the moment only existed within his line of sight. "As much as I'd like to watch him slowly bleed out, we need to get Maddox into custody, we unfortunately still need the bastard."

"Yeah, get Maddox to Interpol," Steve said. "And brief Bruce on the situation, we'll get Clint out to the Quinjet after we assess the damage."

Natasha was already reaching for Clint's vest, peeling back the velcro strap on one side, causing Clint to wince at the way it pulled at him. Steve did the same on his other side. Then they were carefully lifting the heavy Kevlar vest up and off of his chest… and for several long moments the only this Clint could concentrate on was the blessed air flooding abused lungs. It was a dizzying mix of relief and anguish.

"Well, you're gonna be bruised to hell, but it looks like the Kevlar did it's job," Natasha said with a sigh of relief.

"This bruising is already pretty bad," Steve said. "He could have some fractured ribs."

"We can't do much about that here," Natasha pointed out. "Let's get him back to the jet and let Bruce take a look."

Steve threaded his arm behind Clint's shoulders, slowly lifting his upper body as Clint moaned and gasped in pain. He let Clint sit for a minute, struggling to regain his composure. Finally, Clint looked at Steve and gave a small nod. Steve ducked under one of Clint's arms and the leveraged him up to his feet, Natasha steadying him on his other side. Despite the two of them going as slowly and gently as possible, the pain was still horrible and left Clint gasping desperately for breath as his chest protested the movements.

"Clint?" Steve said worriedly.

"Just… go," Clint panted. No use in waiting on him when this wasn't showing any signs of improving.

The trip through the building a blur to Clint. Every movement was agonizing, but he determinedly put one foot in front of the other as best as he could as he was supported by Steve and Natasha.

"How's he doing?" Bruce's voice floating to him through the fog of pain was a comfort.

"The bullets didn't pierce his vest, but he's still in a lot of pain," Natasha reported as Steve helped Clint lay on a cot in the back of the Quinjet. "He also started to wheeze, like he's not getting enough air."

"He was shot in the middle of his chest?" Bruce asked as he knelt next to Clint, studying his bare chest.

"There were several dents in his Kevlar," Natasha said. "I'd say he got shot three or four times by a high powered firearm at close distance. All clustered around the middle of his chest."

"Clint?" Bruce prompted, looking at him expectantly.

"Soun's… righ'…" Clint managed to ground out. The air in the jet seemed so much thin all of a sudden and the world blurred around him.

"Okay, Clint, it looks like you've got a pneumothorax," Bruce said as he disappeared from Clint's line of sight. Clint heard him rummaging through medical supplies. "You're going to be fine, but I need to place a chest tube to release the pressure. It'll make it easier for you to breath."

Natasha appeared above Clint's head, placing a gentle hand on each side of his head in order to provide support. Clint looked up at her and allowed his fear to show through his eyes. It felt like his lungs were strangling themselves and it was getting so hard to breath.

"It's okay," Natasha told him quietly. "Bruce is going to fix you right up."

"Here, get that on him," Bruce said, and the next thing Clint knew, Natasha was slipping an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. "Sorry, Clint, but we have to do this right now, we don't have time for painkillers. It'll only hurt for a minute though."

Bruce working on the side of his chest drew Clint's gaze down, but Natasha put her hand under his chin to stop him from seeing what was happening. "Don't look," she told him quietly.

He reached up his arm on his free side to put it over the hand that Natasha had on the side of his head, hoping to absorb some of her calm composure. There was a sharp pain in his side… and then a harder, sharper pain that caused him to yelp hoarsely.

"Okay, try to take a few deep breaths, Clint," Bruce instructed.

Clint tentatively did as he was told, wary of the pain that promised to intensify. But though his chest still protested any and all movement, he found that he was able to breathe a little deeper than before. Over the next few minutes, his breath started to come much easier and Clint finally started to relax a bit.

"I'm going to give you some morphine to help with the pain," Bruce told him just before there was a pinch in his arm. "You'll still need medical attention, so this will keep you comfortable until we can get you back to the Tower."

"You're a lot of work, Clint," Natasha said teasingly as Clint felt the warmth of the morphine lull him into a deep sleep.


	22. Hallucination

**Author's Note:**Getting this one in just under the wire! Thank you **GoodCharlotte615**, **GloriousPurpose12**, **anaticulapraecantrix** and **Katie MacAlpine** for your reviews on the last chapter! You guys are all the best!

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**Hallucination**

_"He thinks you're crazy, you know that, bud? He's always regretted bringing you in, but today is one of those days where he can't even remember why he did it. He'd kick you out on your ass if he could."_

"Clint?

_"You can't even earn your keep here. You spend more time in the infirmary than anything else. These people have to be getting tired of taking care of your dumbass."_

"Clint? Look at me. Take a breath and look at me."

Clint deliberately pulled air into his lungs, concentrating on the feeling before he carefully let it out. Then he shifted his gaze.

"Who am I?"

"Phil," Clint said quietly.

Phil leaned forward in his chair beside Clint's hospital bed and smiled. "That's right. I'm here. And who's not here?"

Clint shifted his gaze again to the sight of Barney Barton leaning against the wall in the treatment room, his arms crossed over his chest and a condescending smirk on his lips.

_"How's it hangin' baby bro? You still look like shit."_

"Clint? Who's _not_ here?"

Clint took in another deep breath and wrenched his gaze away from his brother who was not really standing there. "Barney. Barney's not really here."

"Good," Phil praised. "That's better Clint, you can recognize that. The drugs are working their way out of your system."

Clint sighed heavily as he reached up and rubbed his forehead where it was pounding dully. "Not fast enough," he mumbled.

"Hey," Phil said, reaching over and placing a hand on the forearm of Clint's other arm. "It's gonna be okay. This will be over soon."

_"He's only saying that so you'll stop looking to pathetic,"_ Barney sneered. _"I'd of smacked you upside the head by now and told you to stop being so damn dramatic. It's not like you're dying, bud. Not anymore anyway."_

"Yeah, I'm fine," Clint muttered, dropping his hand back down. "Just tired. He won't let me sleep."

"Don't do that," Phil said so sharply that Clint's gaze darted over to him. "Right now you are not fine. I know Barney isn't saying anything warm and fuzzy to you. I need you to be realistic about the fact that you're going to be okay soon, but it's alright to not be okay now."

_"What a crock of shit. No one ever actually listens to that goody goody bullshit, do they? That's not how the real world works."_

Clint dropped his head into his hands. He had been dosed with this hallucinogenic drug almost a week ago now. He was recovering, but the process was frustratingly slow. At first Clint had absolutely no concept of what was real and what wasn't. Now he was at least able to recognize that Barney was not really there, but he was still having a hard time not letting Barney's words get under his skin.

It had been a long time since he had been torn down by Barney like this.

The mattress dipped, and Clint looked up to see that Phil had shifted to sit on the edge of the bed. "You know he's not really here." Clint nodded. "That means all he has is words. And because Barney's not really here, that means the words aren't actually coming from him. You're own mind has to be providing whatever he's spouting. My guess is that it's your own insecurities that he's feeding off of."

Clint swallowed thickly. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm too much trouble for my worth," he admitted quietly.

"Clint, recovery is part of the job," Phil said. "It's part of being human. Every agent has some kind of fallout after a mission. Whether it's physical or mental, whether it's something that requires a few days or a few weeks, it's a natural part of this job that we do. There's nothing wrong with that."

_"Have I mentioned that's not how the real world works? You should be better than this."_

"Apparently my subconscious doesn't agree," Clint mumbled to Phil.

"That's not surprising," Phil admitted. "You've never really been in a position to comfortably take recovery time in your life. But this is part of a stable life, kid. I promise you that."

Clint took a shuddering breath and leaned his head heavily against the pillow. "I'm just so tired."

"Close your eyes, kid," Phil instructed. "Get some rest."

"He won't let me," Clint insisted. "Every time I close me eyes he gets… meaner… louder…" It sounded so stupid and childish.

"Clint, Barney is not here," Phil reminded him firmly. "I am here. So, close your eyes."

Clint shot a skeptical look at Phil. But Phil just calmly watched and waited. Finally, Clint sighed and let his eyes slide shut.

_"You are a drain on this world, everyone would be better off-"_

"You know, I'm proud of you," Phil said lowly and evenly. "Despite everything that went wrong with this mission, you still finished it. That's what I admire about you and what makes you good at this job. You are strong, strong enough to do what needs to be done."

Phil continued to talk, and Clint found that it was easier to focus on Phil's voice than it was Barney's. Finally, Clint felt himself sinking down into a restful sleep for what felt like the first time in days. He wasn't sure what he had done to deserve having Phil at his side, but he'd never cease being grateful.


	23. Bleeding Out

**Author's Note:** Big shout outs to **Reagangirl**, **GloriousPurpose12**, **GoodCharlotte615** and **Katie MacAlpine **for reviewing the last chapter! I'm glad you liked that one, I felt a little so so about it haha. This one picks up the drama a bit! Hope you enjoy!

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**Bleeding Out**

Phil wrenched the door open, searching the darkness beyond desperately. Just a moment later two figures came limping out of the night and Phil quickly moved out of the way to let them through. He shut the door and secured the locks before turning to his agents.

"What've we got?" Phil demanded as he hurried over to them.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Clint gasped. "She's fading, we have to do something now."

Clint had one of Natasha's arms thrown over his shoulders, but she wasn't helping at all with making their way across the safehouse. Phil rushed passed them to Natasha's cot, ripping the blankets and pillows off of it and tossing them thoughtlessly to the floor. Clint threaded his free arm under Natasha's knees and scooped her up so that he could place her on the cleared cot.

Phil got his first real look at Natasha, and it was so horrifying that Phil's knees suddenly felt weak. She was pale as a sheet, her breaths fast and shallow and her eyes half open but unfocused. Clint had wrapped a makeshift bandage - at a glance Phil could see that it was Clint's sleeve - around Natasha's shoulder and upper chest on her left side.

The worst was the blood. The blood that soaked Natasha's shoulder, that dripped down her side that coated her left arm and hand. And it didn't stop there. Clint's hands were saturated, blood also coating his side.

"It's not mine," Clint said breathlessly, reading Phil's mind. His eyes were wide, panic brewing within them. "It's… it's all hers."

"Shit," Phil hissed.

Then he snapped into action. Phil hurried over to the table where he had left the med kit he had pulled out when Clint had called to tell him that Natasha had been shot. Clint had dragged over a side table next to Natasha's cot for Phil to dump out the supplies. As Clint untied his makeshift bandage Phil sorted out the supplies that he needed. Phil grabbed a pair of scissors and quickly cut away Natasha's shirt around the wound. Then he went to work quickly and firmly packing the wound with bandages.

"Is that gonna be enough?" Clint asked anxiously.

Phil sighed heavily as he carefully assessed the situation. Natasha had lost an extremely dangerous amount of blood and they still had several hours until the med evac that Phil had called got to them.

"She needs a blood transfusion in order to have a chance," Phil admitted. He looked at Clint. The mission obviously hadn't been easy on him either. Bruises were starting to color his skin, he was pale and still a little short of breath. He hated that this was their only option. "I'm not a match for her, but your blood type is O-negative, which is the universal donor."

Clint was already rolling up his sleeve. "Let's do this."

"Go grab a stool," Phil instructed as he sorted through his medical supplies again. It had been a long time since he had been told how to do this… but he was pretty sure it would work.

Phil grabbed some IV tubing, two catheter needles and medical tape. He worked quickly as he attached one of the IV catheters to one end of the tubing and then cut the other end of the tube that was normally meant to attached to the IV bag. Then he carefully taped the other IV catheter to the other end, making sure it was sealed.

"Put that there and sit," Phil said quickly as Clint reappeared with the stool. Clint immediately did as he was told. Phil grabbed an antiseptic wipe in order to clean Clint's arm. He found a vein in the crook of Clint's arm and placed one end of the IV. He allowed the tube to fill with Clint's blood before he placed the other end into Natasha's arm. Phil sighed. "You have to stay on that stool so the blood runs down the tube. You can flex your hand to help with the flow."

Clint nodded vaguely, opening and shutting his hand at even intervals.

Phil shifted his focus back to Natasha for a minute. He checked her pulse. It was weak and thready, but it was there. Her breathing was still fast and shallow, hitching every couple breaths, but at least she was still breathing.

He sighed heavily as he sat back. He had done all he could for Natasha for the moment. It was time to change focus again. He looked up at Clint, who was blinking heavily and swaying a bit on the stool. The adrenaline had apparently worn off and it looked like shock was starting to set in.

Phil pushed himself up and headed across the safehouse. He grabbed a hand towel, filled a pot with warm water and then poured a glass of orange juice. He tossed the towel of his shoulder, grabbed the pot and the glass and then went back to his agents.

"Here," Phil said gently, handing the glass of juice to Clint. "Sip on that."

"I'm not thirsty," Clint said, his voice hoarse.

"You need to keep your sugar up in order to give as much blood as Natasha needs," Phil told him rationally. That got Clint to take the glass, mechanically bringing it to his lips. Phil took that as a win for now. "I'm going to clean you up a bit, okay?"

Clint nodded, though he didn't look at Phil. In fact, he wasn't looking at Natasha ever, but rather was staring out to the middle distance. Phil could only deal with one thing at a time though. For now, he wet the towel in the pan of water and then set to work washing Natasha's blood off of Clint's hands and arms the best that he could.

"You okay, Clint?" Phil asked into the awkward silence as he finished up. When there was no response, Phil looked over at Clint in concern. He had only drunk a little of the juice and was still staring off blankly. Phil felt a spike of fear, wondering if he had missed an injury. "Clint?"

"It was my fault," Clint said quietly. "If I had been faster she wouldn't have-"

"No," Phil cut him off firmly. "No, don't do that to yourself, kid. This kind of shit happens in our line of work, you know than and Natasha knows that too. What matters is you got her back here and we're doing everything we can to keep her going until the med team gets here." Clint swallowed thickly and gave a small, unconvincing nod. Phil reached over a put a hand on Clint's shoulder, drawing his attention. "Drink your juice, kid. It's going to be okay."

Clint lifted the glass again and took another sip.

Phil went to grab another stool to bring over so that he could take a seat next to Clint. He felt bad, the kid looked exhausted, but there weren't any chairs that were tall enough to keep Clint above Natasha. Phil coaxed Clint into finishing the glass of juice and then allowed Clint to lean against him heavily.

Phil checked his watch. A half hour after he had started the transfusion, Phil shifted in order to stop it, knowing that Clint had likely transfused almost three pints at that point, which should be enough to keep Natasha stable until the team arrived and was also pushing how much Clint could safely give.

The movement caused Clint to stir from where he had begun to doze with his head on Phil's shoulder.

"I can give more," Clint mumbled as Phil began to detach the transfusion.

"You gave plenty," Phil assured him. "I need you to drink some more juice and then I need you to get some rest."

"She'll be okay?" Clint asked, blinking blearily down at Natasha's still form.

"Yes, she's going to be okay," Phil said firmly. "She's going to be okay because of you. You did good, Clint."

A ghost of a smile crossed Clint's lips. Phil helped him over to his own cot, keeping him up long enough to drink another generous glass of orange juice before he allowed him to drift off to sleep.

When the med team finally arrive, they found both of Phil's agents resting comfortably, Clint sleeping soundly and Natasha still hanging on.

"Your first aid skills are impressive, Agent Coulson," one of the medics said as they carried Natasha out on a stretcher. "You know, we could use you in our department."

Phil smiled and shook his head. "No thanks. I'm right where I need to be."


	24. Secret Injury

**Author's Note:**Thank you so much **GloriousPurpose12**, **GoodCharlotte615** and** Katie MacAlpine** for your continued support! You all rock!

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**Secret Injury**

The sound of the roof access door slamming open had Clint whirling around, snapping off two arrows at the intruders before they had any time at all to react to him. Two dead hostiles filled the doorway, but unfortunately in the time that it took Clint to load a third arrow three more have dove through the opening and taken cover behind nearby HVAC units.

"Shit," Clint hissed as gunshots rang out. He rolled away from the gunfire, desperately seeking some shelter of his own before talking into his comm. "Eyes off the field. Watch your backs."

Clint loathed having to take his eyes off the field for any reason. He was the team's eyes, he saw the big picture and had the entire team's back while they concentrated on just what existed in their own small world in the moment.

He needed to take care of this quickly and get the hell back to his post.

It was that thought that had him lunging out from behind his meager cover and moving toward the gunfire instead of away from it. He fired arrows as he moved, doing his best to provide his own cover while he went for a better vantage point. Keeping one bad guy in check was easy. Two was doable. But three? That was a little much, even for Hawkeye.

The point was underlined by a burning across Clint's chest. He ignored it as he continued forward. As he approached the HVAC system, he drew three arrows, dove around the system and fired them in rapid succession, easily taking out all three hostiles.

He wasted no time getting back to his post at the edge of the roof. He did a frantic headcount, letting out a relieved breath to see that everyone was still accounted for.

"Eyes back on the field," Clint announced into his comm.

"_You okay, Hawk?" _Steve asked.

"Yeah, fine, Cap," Clint assured. "A few hostiles made my position, had to take them on. Back on mission now. You've got another group inbound from the northeast."

Clint reached for another arrow… and winced. He looked down at the long, wet stain across his uniform, belatedly linking it to the burning sensation he had felt before. He reached down and probed the wound. The bullet hadn't hit him, but rather had skimmed across his lower ribs, leaving a pretty good sized crease.

"_Barton, can I get an assist?"_

Clint's gaze shot back to the field at the sound of Natasha's voice. She was surrounded by a group of hostiles, holding her own but even she had her limits. Ignoring the biting pain in his chest, Clint drew an arrow, nocked it, drew back his bow and fired.

It was his job to watch over the team. It was his job to have everyone's backs. As he continued to fire arrows, sending more and more blood dripping down his torso to the ground underneath him, he barely registered the pain. His entire focus was on keeping his team safe.

"_I think we've earned a vacation," _Tony announced as they finally secured the village that the invading drug army had been trying to take over. "_Seriously, someplace nice. And warm. Thoughts?"_

"_Maybe save the brainstorming for later," _Steve said, a little breathless. "_Everyone okay?" _

"_Came through surprisingly well intact," _Tony said proudly.

"_The victory came too easily!" _Thor boasted.

"_Still in one piece," _Natasha said.

Clint placed a hand to the crease across his chest wincing.

"_Barton?" _Steve prompted, a hint of concern in his tone.

"Got nicked," Clint admitted. "I'm okay though." He didn't need to be taking up resources, they still had civilians that needed to be seen to.

"_Do you need help?"_

"No, it's not bad," Clint assured him. And it wasn't really. A few stitches and he'd be good as new.

"_Okay, let's start a headcount and see if any civilians need medical attention," _Steve said briskly. "_Let's start a sweep, Thor and Stark, start from the north, Romanoff, Barton and I will start from the south and we'll meet at the center."_

"_Clint, are you okay for cleanup?" _Natasha asked. She sounded vaguely suspicious.

As much as he wanted help, he knew there would be no downplaying the blood. Not that it was a lot, but he knew that the team tended to worry.

"I think I'll leave cleanup to you guys," Clint said reluctantly. "I'll head to the Quinjet and get Bruce to look at this nick."

"_Clint," _Natasha said warningly.

"I'm fine," Clint insisted firmly. He turned back to the roof access and started limping toward it. "You guys focus on the civilians. I'm heading for the jet now."

"_Bruce, if you don't see Clint in fifteen minutes, tell me immediately," _Natasha said.

"_Copy that, Natasha," _Bruce said as Clint rolled his eyes.

Clint entered the stairwell and leaned over the railing to look down the ten flights of stairs he needed to descend. He sighed heavily. Damnit. Why was there never an elevator when he needed one?

He took a steadying breath, and then started the arduous journey down the ten stories. He braced himself heavily on the railing as he limped down each step. One story. He was feeling short of breath. Two, three stories. He had to pause in order to catch his breath, but pushed one, knowing that he was going to cut it close to his fifteen minute deadline as it was. Four, five, six stories. The hand pressed against his wound was starting to shake and he was beginning to feel unsteady. Seven, eight, nine stories and his vision was beginning to blur.

It seemed like an eternity, but his foot finally hit the ground floor. He leaned heavily against the wall, trying to catch his breath and willing the world around him to steady.

"_Clint?"_

"Just… needa… minute," Clint panted. Slowly, he felt himself sliding down the wall to slump against it, his eyes sliding shut. "Just gonna rest…"

XxXxX

"I ought to smack the shit out of you."

Clint felt a smirk pulling at his lips even before he regained full consciousness. He blinked once… twice. Damnit it was bright. And there was a low hum that filled his ears.

"Yeah, you better wake up. You've got a hell of a lecture coming your way."

Clint snorted a small laugh as his eyes finally adjusted to the light and he took in his surroundings. He was lying on a low cot in the back of the Quinjet, Natasha kneeling next to him and Steve hovering behind her. He looked up and saw a blood bag hanging over his head, the tubing winding down and connected to an IV in his arm.

"Wha' happened?" Clint asked.

"What happened is that you should have told us how bad it was so we didn't have to track you down when you passed out in that stairwell," Natasha snapped.

"It wasn't that bad," Clint insisted.

"The wound itself wasn't bad," Bruce said, drawing Clint's gaze to where he stood at the foot of the bed, looking over a Starkpad. "The problem was how much you bled. Had you just requested an evac all you would have needed was a few stitches. Instead you pushed yourself into hemostatic shock."

"Yeah, no need to be so dramatic, Barton," Tony spoke up from somewhere beyond Clint's line of sight. "I could have delivered you to the jet and still have been back for sweeps in under five minutes." His tone was his usual joking lilt, but there was a note of actual concern in his voice.

"Sorry," Clint mumbled.

"Damn right, your sorry," Natasha said, but a small smile was playing at her lips. "And you're got going to try and pull anything like that again. Right."

Clint sent a glance around at the concerned faces of his teammates surrounding his cot. He smiled. "Right."


	25. Infection

**Author's Note:** Hello! I'm still here! Apologies for missing the last couple days! I got bowled over by a migraine for two days, and then Halloween ended up being way busier than anticipated. But I'm back! Technically, Whumptober is over as of yesterday... but I'm still determined to finish! There was 31 total prompts, so I've still got six more prompts to go in hopefully the next six(ish) days. So we're not done yet!

Thank you to **anaticulapraecantrix**, **Amie88**, **GoodCharlotte615**, **GloriousPurpose12**, and **Katie MacAlpine** for your amazing support throughout this story! You guys are literally THE BEST! Thank you so much!

And lastly, I apologize in advance for the vague ending to this chapter. The idea was more complicated than anticipated and I could have been stuck for days trying to get them out of the predicament, so I just kind of summarized it in the end. I'll try not to dig myself (and my characters) into quite the hole in the rest of the prompts, haha.

* * *

**Infection**

"Barton? You still with me?" There was a long and painful silence. The body in the other cell didn't move, not so much of a twitch. Was he still breathing? "Barton? Clint?!"

Clint gave a small, weak cough as he shifted uncomfortably. "Still here, Cap."

Steve sighed heavily in relief. "Good. Let's try to keep it that way, okay?"

"That's the plan," Clint confirmed with a strained smirk. He took in a rattling breath and the coughed weakly again.

Steve felt helpless as he watched Clint from where he sat on the floor of his own cell. They were being kept in a long hallway that was lined with jail cells, but since they had been brought here they had been the only two occupants. Steve occupied one cell about halfway down the hallway and Clint occupied the one directly across from him.

They had both been in pretty rough shape when they had been brought in. But the difference was that Steve had the super soldier serum flowing through his veins. A deep gash in his thigh and a stab wound in his shoulder that had practically crippled him days ago were already almost completely healed. In contrast, a decent bullet crease in Clint's side - a much more minor injury than Steve's when they had been captured - had led to an infection that was now wreaking havoc on his body.

Guilt weighed heavily on Steve as he watched a violent tremor run through Clint's body.

Steve glared at the bars of the cell. Normally, it wouldn't be enough to hold him, but they had figured out - the hard way - that the bars were electrified. They were very effectively contained, and Steve honestly didn't see a way out of this. He knew the team must be looking for them, but there was no guarantee that they would find them in time.

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face. He had rarely felt so powerless. Well, at least since he had been gifted with the super soldier serum.

The door at the end of the hallway scraped open like nails on a chalkboard. Steve instantly launched himself to his feet, craning to see who was coming. Opposite him, Clint lifted his head from where it had been lulling listlessly against the wall he was leaning heavily against and blinked blearily. It said a lot about his deteriorating condition that he didn't even try to get to his feet as one of their guards came down the corridor.

"Chow time," the guard announced flatly.

He held a plastic tray in each try, each with a plastic cup of water and a fist-sized chunk of bread. He placed them down on the floor and used his foot to push one between the bars of Clint's cell.

"I don't want it," Steve snapped as the man turned toward his tray. "Give it to him." He jerked his chin toward Clint as if there were any other options.

The guard looked at him, sizing him up for a moment. "No can do. You're the main event buddy." He slid the tray into Steve cell.

Steve locked the man with a hard glare. "If I'm the main event, then I'm making the calls. I'm not touching this. So give it to him."

The guard sighed. "Dude, I can't make that call, it's above my paygrade. Just eat the damn bread. Okay?"

Steve met the man's gaze, holding it without blinking as he kicked over the cup of water and then stomped on the bread, which crunched loudly in the quiet room. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"That man is _dying_," Steve hissed lowly. "I know your boss doesn't care, because he thinks I'm the real prize here. But you're going to go back to him and _make _him care. Even with the serum, I'm not immune to dehydration and starvation. In fact, with my high metabolism, it happens quicker than most people." Steve took a step toward the bars, feeling the heat from the electricity. "Go tell him that my friend needs medical attention. And I won't touch any food or water until he gets it."

The guard sighed heavily as he turned and headed back down the hallway, muttering about how he doesn't get paid enough for this bullshit.

"That metabolism thing… is that real?" Clint asked after they were alone again.

Steve smirked. "As far as they know." He paused, eyeing the distance between the tray at the front of cell and where Clint sat at the back of the cell. "Can you make it to the tray? You really should eat and drink something."

Clint eyed the tray himself and then sighed heavily, the action causing a wince. With an effort, Clint pushed himself away from the way, his features twisting in pain as he pushed himself across the cell. His left arm was pushed tightly up against his side as he moved, and Steve had to imagine that the wound was terribly painful at this point.

By the time he settled himself next to the tray, one knee bent up to his chest and his other leg curled underneath him, Clint was panting heavily and had to reach up to wipe sweat from the from his brow before reaching a trembling hand down to the cup of water. He was barely able to keep the cup steady enough to take a small sip. Steve's stomach twisted as the watched, wishing that he could at least help with the menial task.

"How are you feeling?" Steve asked, mostly just to break the painful silence.

Clint carefully placed the cup back on the tray and braced his hand on the floor, hunching over himself and grimacing.

"Not gonna lie," Clint said with a hoarse, humorless laugh. "Not real great, Cap."

"Yeah, I know," Steve admitted. "You just need to hang in there a little longer. I'm sure the team is closing in."

Clint sat back heavily. "Yeah. Hope so."

Steve frowned when Clint didn't reach toward the tray again. "Can you try and drink some more water and eat some of that bread?"

Clint swallowed thickly. "Yeah," he huffed on a heavy exhale. "Yeah… yeah, just needa… needa minute."

Damnit. Clint was crashing fast. They were running out of time.

"Captain Rogers." Steve's eyes snapped back down the hallways as the door slammed open again. A guard of five men were stomping down the corridor. The man in front, obviously the man in charge, held a small, white box in one hand and a drawn sidearm in the other as he strode down the hallway between the cells. "As requested, we brought your friend some fresh bandages." He stopped between the cells and carelessly tossed the box between the bars into Clint's cell, sending it skidding. "Now will you cooperate?"

Steve glared. Clint needed a whole lot more than just fresh bandages. But Steve knew that he wasn't going to make any headway trying to argue for antibiotics. So he focused on something that he might be able to get.

"He's not going to be able to change those bandages himself in his condition," Steve said. "Let me in his cell."

The man rolled his eyes and cocked his sidearm. Steve tensed as the gun shifted toward Clint. "I'll let you in to his cell, but one wrong move and I shoot him in the head."

"Fine," Steve spat.

"Weapons ready," the man warned his companions, who all lifted their guns. Then she turned to the radio on his shoulder. "Control room. Release cell 14 and then 15."

There was a whirring noise and four bars in the middle of the front of Steve's cell retracted into the floor. A moment later, four bar in Clint's cell did the same.

"Nice and easy now," the man said, jerking his head toward Clint's cell. "And keep your hands where I can see them."

Steve took a steadying breath. He held his hands out at either side of him as he carefully stepped forward. As he stepped out of the cell, he watched the guards warily, not convinced that this wasn't some kind of trick. He was very careful to not make any sudden movements and he crossed the hallway in the weighted silence. He didn't relax even a fraction until he was standing in Clint's cell and the bars were back in place.

"I'll need a new tray," Steve pointed out.

"I'll alert room service," the lead guard drawled before leading his posse back out of the hallway.

Steve let out a relieved sigh as they were left alone again and finally dropped his focus to Clint. He hadn't moved much during the exchange, still sitting on the floor and hunched over his injured side. Steve crouched down next to him and reached out, placing a comforting hand lightly on Clint's shoulder. Just with that small touch, Steve could feel the heat of the fever radiating off of Clint.

"Clint?"

His head was bowed and Steve couldn't get a good look at his face. But Steve could hear him wheezing in shallow breaths, his muscles tense, so Steve was fairly certain that he was still at least semi-conscious even when he didn't appear to acknowledge Steve's presence.

"Okay, Clint, let me get a look at that wound," Steve said lowly, gently pushing him back and helping him lay out flat on the floor of the cell. As he moved, Clint let out a low, shuddering groan. Steve winced in sympathy. "Sorry."

He focused on Clint's side. He had taken one of his socks and a strip from the bottom of his shirt to initially bind the wound in order to stem the bleeding. It hadn't been ideal, but at the time it had been better than nothing. Steve gingerly probed the fabric and found that it was stiff with dried blood. Steve sighed. There wasn't any way around it.

"Sorry, Clint," Steve said. "This is going to hurt, but I gotta unwrap this."

Clint's eyes were half open, his gaze fogged and unfocused. He was fading fast.

Steve quickly got to work. The makeshift bandage was practically fused to Clint's skin, and as Steve pulled at it, low moans and yelps crawled up Clint's throat. Steve continued to apologize under his breath the entire time he worked. As he finally got a look at the wound, his stomach dropped as it looked even worse than he had expected. The entire area was an angry, painful red and the wound itself was wet with pus and exudate.

Steve ran a hand over his face. This was bad. This was so much worse than he had thought it was. And he had already thought it was pretty bad.

He took a deep breath. There wasn't much he could do, but something was better than nothing. Steve rationed out the bandages and water, using a portion to clean out the wound as best he could. And then he packed the wound with the rest of the bandages, and tore a strip from his shirt in order to tie the bandages in place.

As he worked, another guard brought another tray. When he had finished doing what he could, he propped Clint up and coaxed him into drinking some water. Then he lay Clint back down on the ground in order to let him get some rest.

And as he watched Clint sleep fitfully, he knew that he couldn't just sit here and wait for rescue. He had to do something, or Clint wasn't going to make it.

The next day when the door scraped open, Steve was at the bars waiting. He lured the man with the trays closer to the bars and shot his hand through the bars, yanking the guard into the bars and setting off the electric shock in order to incapacitate him. He held him until the man lost consciousness. From there, he was able to carefully rifle through the man's pockets and found a cell phone.

One phone call, and Steve was able to call in the team, who had thankfully been in the area searching desperately for them.

Even with all of that, Clint still almost didn't make it. It was a close call, closer than anyone would be able to admit in the aftermath. The Avengers weren't immortal. Sometimes they were just very, very lucky.


	26. Abandoned

**Author's Note:** Back on top of things! Yay! Thanks for **GoodCharlotte615** and **GloriousPurpose12** for reviewing the last chapter!

_Disclaimer: Natasha's background here is probably very AU. I'm only vaguely familiar of her backstory in the comics and she doesn't really have one before SHIELD in the movies._

* * *

**Abandoned**

"_Romanoff, get out of there!"_

The smoke poured in thickly, completely surrounding her. She should move, she should move now. She dropped down to the floor, but she was still choking on smoke. The heat was pushing in around her. And her brain… went blank.

"_Natasha! Natasha, can you hear me?"_

The smoke was consuming her lungs, every cough only dragged in more smoke. The crackling of fire and snapping of building supports filled her ears. This was it. This was the end for her. The fire that had been chasing her for her entire life had finally caught up with her. It honestly had taken longer than she thought it would.

Suddenly, there was something solid and uncomfortable clamp around her. She struggled weakly, but she really had no hope. She had already accepted her fate.

But suddenly, the smoked thinned and the heat dimmed. She was coughing out smoke and breathing in blessedly clean air. Her lungs screamed with every movement, but her brain sent relief throughout her body. Was she saved? Or was this the relief of death?

She blinked, her eyes stinging from the fire, fighting away the blurriness and dark edges to her vision in order to figure out what was going on. She was sitting on the cold ground, propped up by an arm wrapped around her shoulders. She lifted her head to see Clint Barton's concerned features looking back at her.

"Keep coughing, try to get it all up," Clint encouraged.

Natasha didn't have much choice but to do as she was told. After a few more minutes of wheezing coughs, her breathing was finally starting to even out.

"Let's get you back to the safehouse," Clint said. "We can get you on some oxygen and help clear your lungs more."

Natasha only nodded. She allowed Clint to lift her arm and thread it over his shoulders. He carefully leveraged her back up to her feet, and she leaned on him heavily as they began to walk. And not for the first time, Natasha marveled at the way she was able to trust him. Just two years ago, she wouldn't have trusted anyone enough to allow herself to be so vulnerable around them. She had come a long way since escaping the Red Room and being recruited into SHIELD.

But as she remembered the fire, remembered the panic and hopelessness, she was reminded that she still had a way to go.

When they arrived at the safehouse, their handler Phil Coulson, was waiting for them. He had already set up an oxygen tank next to her cot, and as Clint helped her to sit on the edge of the cot he handed her the mask to press to her nose and mouth, knowing better than to try and do it for her.

These were people who knew her and knew what she found comfort in, and even _cared _about that. These were people that cared about her. And as she greedily breathed in the clean oxygen, something finally dawned on her. She shifted her gaze to stare wide-eyed at Clint, where he had pulled up a chair nearby and was allowing Phil to apply ointment to a nasty burn on his shoulder.

It all finally slammed into place. Clint had made it out of the burning building just fine… but had come back for her when she had collapsed in on herself. He had entered a burning building, risked his life, in order to carry her out of it.

"You didn't have to do that," Natasha said quietly, her voice hoarse and her throat raw.

Clint looked up in surprise. "I wasn't just going to leave you in there," he said, as if that were the obvious response.

Natasha blinked. "My handler at the Red Room would have," she admitted softly.

"We're not the Red Room," Phil pointed out gently.

Natasha nodded. Why was that so difficult to remember sometimes?

"Can I ask you something?" Clint said. Natasha merely looked at him expectantly. "You had plenty of time to get out before the fire got to you. What happened?"

Everything within Natasha froze, to the point where she almost forgot to breath. It was something she had never spoken about to anyone. It was something that haunted her nightmares, that had followed her throughout her entire life. But… the Red Room hadn't cared why she had been so paralysed by fear when it came to fire. They had made no exceptions for her fear and time and time again they had forced her into situations that she was not prepared for, punishing her viciously when she failed.

She focused again on Clint and Phil. This was not the Red Room.

"When I was four years old… there was a fire in my home," she said quietly. "My mother and I were the only ones home. We were separated by the fire and I… I can still hear her screams sometimes. The Fire Service managed to save me from the house, but my mother was already gone by the time they had gotten there. My father… never recovered. He spent all his waking moments drinking and could barely look at me. One day when I was six he took me out, told me we were going shopping. I was so very excited, I thought things were finally going to change, that he finally forgave me for living when my mother hadn't. But… he took me to the orphanage and abandoned me there." She swallowed thickly. "I was there for a year before the Red Room came and took me in."

She looked up at the shocked faces of her partner and handler. "That fire still haunts my dreams. Sometimes I feel like that's where my life was supposed to end. And sometimes I think that that fire is still following me."

"I didn't know," Clint said softly, looking at her with painful sympathy. "I never would have left you in there to save yourself if I had known."

Natasha nodded. "I know."

And she did know. She knew that these people cared about her. She knew that she mattered to Clint Barton and Phil Coulson. She wasn't just a tool for a mission anymore. She was a real person who chose to do this job. She was indeed very far from the Red Room.

And with that thought, she smiled.


	27. Ransom

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much **GoodCharlotte615** for reviewing the last chapter! I know it can be hard for readers to keep up sometimes with this quick posting schedule, but I appreciate any kind of feedback!

* * *

**Ransom**

"_... You have twenty-four hours. Do not test me, Avengers. You will find me a man of my word."_

The monitor in the Tower's briefing room went dark. No one in the room move, no one appeared to so much as breath. It was almost as if time had stopped altogether. Unfortunately that was so very far from the truth. As they just sat there, the clock on their deadline was ticking. Tony could almost hear it click by every agonizing second.

Several long minutes after the message had ended, Tony shoved his chair back with a loud scrape, shattering the tense silence. All eyes were on him as he launched himself to his feet and started stalking toward the door.

"Tony," Steve said. "Where are you going?"

Tony stopped and looked at him, his eyes wide. "You're joking, right?" Three blank looks stared back at him. "I need to start transferring funds into an account so that I can wire that bastard the goddamn money."

"Wait, we need to talk about this," Steve said, putting out a placating hand.

"Are you kidding me?" Tony snapped in disbelief. "Did you just watch the same message that I did?"

"Yes, which is why we need to talk about the best course of action."

Tony shifted his gaze from Steve to Bruce and then finally rested on Natasha. Surely he wasn't the only one who was ready to jump into action. But neither Bruce nor Natasha would even look at him.

"Are you guys shitting me?" Tony demanded. Then he focused on the one Avengers who should damn well be on his side in this. "Romanoff?"

Natasha sighed heavily and then finally looked up and met his gaze. "You know I want him back more than anyone. But we have to be practical here and look at the big picture. If we just give up the money immediately-"

"You think _the money_ is more important than _Barton's life_?" Tony practically snarled.

At that, Natasha's fist pounded into the table so hard that Tony wouldn't be surprised if she left a dent and then sprung to her feet, her eyes blazing. "If you would just stop and _think _for a minute, Stark, you'd know that's not what this is about. The kinds of things that ransom money could do in the hands of a man like that could be devastating. We need to see if we can get him back without potentially sacrificing the safety of thousands of people to a tyrant." Her gaze softened ever so slightly. "We are going to get Clint back. The only thing that's in question right now is _how_."

He didn't like it. Some small part of him knew that Natasha was right, but he didn't like the plan at all. He couldn't stop picturing the image of Clint in the ransom video, his hands bound behind his back, bruises and blood covering his skin, his gaze foggy and shifting in and out of focus. He wanted to do something now, he didn't want to leave Clint in those kind of conditions for any longer than they absolutely had to.

He didn't want Clint to be abandoned to his captivity like Obadiah Stane had done to him.

"I'm going to consolidate the funds for the ransom," Tony said flatly, and went on firmly when Steve opened his mouth to protest. "As a _fallback_. Just in case we need it." He turned on his heels and headed for the door. "Come get me if you figure out where he is."

* * *

Tony Stark was not built to sit in an office. So, despite the office work that he was doing, hours later when Bruce came to find him, he was down in his workshop sitting at a workbench with tools and half finished projects scattered around him.

Bruce set a cup of coffee down next to Tony before taking a seat himself. "You doing okay?"

Tony sighed deeply. "JARVIS is working on liquidating some stocks in order to come up with the money." He paused to check his watch. "He should be finishing up soon."

Bruce nodded, looking at Tony critically. "But, how are _you _doing? With all of this? I can imagine why it might be harder for you to handle something like this."

"Something like what?" Tony said, his voice oddly emotionless. He reached out and wrapped his hands around the cup in front of him. "Getting sent off on a mission that's just a setup for your own kidnapping? Being beaten and tortured and threatened for something you have no control over? Being kept in deplorable conditions and not knowing if anyone is even looking for you?" He paused to take a sip of coffee. "What would give you the notion that I have any idea what that's like, Doc?"

"Clint knows that we're looking for him," Bruce reminded him. "He knows that we wouldn't just abandon him to those people. Steve and Natasha, they are just trying to make sure that we go about this in the best way possible."

"Yeah, and how's that going?" Tony asked bitterly.

"They've got a lead," Bruce said. "They're tracking down one of Natasha's old informants who may have more information."

Tony glanced at his watch again. They were almost eight hours into their countdown. That time had disappeared uncomfortably quickly.

"Well, they better hurry up," Tony mumbled. "If getting to Barton involves any kind of travel time, we're going to be cutting it too close in just a couple of hours."

Bruce nodded. "They know that."

The two fell into a companionable silence. After Tony finished his coffee, him and Bruce started tinkering with a few of Tony's small projects, just to be doing something other than just sitting and waiting.

Ten hours into the countdown, JARVIS finish getting together the extraordinary amount of money Clint's captors had demanded.

Twelve hours into the countdown and Steve checked in with them, flatly informing them that the lead had been a deadend, but they had a few other strings they wanted to pull before resorting to paying the ransom.

Fifteen hours into the countdown, the captors sent another video for "incentive" that featured Clint being repeatedly electrocuted with a car battery. Tony had to leave the room after just one shock. Bruce joined him back down in his workshop just a few minutes later, looking pale and sick.

Eighteen hours into the countdown and Tony had enough.

"I don't give a damn what Rogers and Romanoff say," Tony shouted, lashing out and sweeping his arm across the workbench, sending everything scattering to the floor with a satisfying crash. "We're cutting it too close, even if they do find him, we only have six hours to get to wherever in the godforsaken world he is and get him out, that's cutting it too close, we need to just-"

He was cut off as the door to the workshop slid open and Steve appeared in the doorway.

"Suit up," Steve said firmly. "We found him."

* * *

Thankfully, the captors were in country, hiding in an underground bunker in the Sonoran Desert in New Mexico. With their advanced jet, it took the Avengers five hours to travel there. They were now within one hour of their deadline and their plan had to account for that. There was no time for stealth. At this point, they just had to go in hard and try to get Clint out in one piece.

Hulk went in first, smashing his way into the bunker and proceeding to tear the place apart. In hindsight, sending the Hulk into an underground bunker hadn't been the best idea, but they just had to work with it now.

Steve and Natasha followed Hulk, taking on the small army of men that came clamoring out to challenge them. There was nothing subtle about the way that they infiltrated the facility. In fact, that was the point. As they drew all of the organization's forces to them, Tony was free to do his part of the plan.

On the flight here, Tony had managed to hack into the organization's system and download schematics of the facility. Steve, Natasha and Hulk were all sent in at the end of the bunker furthest from the detention section that Tony headed straight for.

With all the forces drawn to the bulk of the Avengers attack, it was almost laughably easy for Tony to get in. There were three guards left to guard their only prisoner, and Tony took them out with sonic blasts while hardly even registering their existence. They didn't matter.

Only Clint mattered now.

Iron Man reached out and pulled the barred door off of Clint's cell, throwing it easily out of his way. Then, Tony was out of the suit - leaving it on guardian mode - and in the cell, kneeling next to Clint's still form that was pressed into the back corner of the cell.

"Clint?" Tony said softly, fear causing his voice to waver. Were they too late? He reached out and carefully gripped Clint's shoulder, shaking it lightly. "Clint? C'mon, buddy, talk to me."

A groan crawled up Clint's throat and Tony sighed in relief as his eyes slowly blinked open. It took a moment, but finally Clint's eyes managed to focus on Tony.

"T'ny?"

"In the flesh," Tony said with a grin that didn't quite meet his eyes. "Here to bust you out of this hellhole."

And then, inexplicably, a small smirk crossed Clint's lips. "Knew you'd come."

At that, Tony gave an honest to goodness smile. "Yeah. Of course we came. Now, let's get you home."


	28. Waterlogged

**Author's Note:**Oh my gosh! This story officially has **over 100 reviews**! That is amazing, guys! I'm so glad that so many people are enjoying this! After my writing slump, this has really been helpful to remind me why I love writing! Thank you to anyone who has reviewed any chapter of this story, but especially thanks to **GloriousPurpose12**, **Amie88**, **Katie MacAlpine**, **anaticulapraecantrix**, and **GoodCharlotte615** for taking the time to review the last chapter! You guys are all amazing!

* * *

**Waterlogged**

Warning alarms blared at him from every direction, several different bright red lights flashing at different intervals.

"I know, I know, I fucking know!" Clint snapped as he pried one hand off the controls long enough to flip the three switches and smash the two buttons in order shut down the alarms, all while his eyes remained trained out the windshield.

"_Hawkeye, report!" _Steve sounded winded over the comms.

"Critical damage," Clint ground out as he struggled to keep the controls level in order to keep the Quinjet from taking a nosedive. An explosion uncomfortably close caused the jet to jerk and Clint groaned with the effort of keeping the failing chunk of metal and technology in the sky. "Two bogies in pursuit." His gaze swept the area, trying to figure out his best option. "Gotta take it out over the water." He yanked the controls with all his strength and banked a hard right toward the ocean.

"_Can you eject?" _Natasha asked urgently.

Two more near miss missiles rattled the jet. "Negative, not an option. I eject and they're just gonna pick me off in the air."

"_Stark-"_

"_Suit's grounded, Cap," _Tony said before Steve could even ask. "_Repulsors are offline."_

There was a heavy silence over the comms. as the realization hit all of them. Clint was on his own. And this jet wasn't staying in the air much longer.

Clint was forced to pull his focus back to the situation at hand as another missile detonated just passed the nose of the jet. Clint wrenched the control back toward him, forcing the nose of the jet upward and sending the worst of the explosion under the belly. He decided to deliberately ignore the smell of smoke that was suddenly a little too potent for comfort.

He was now well over the ocean, the enemy jet still in close pursuit. There wasn't much that could be done. He was out of ammo. The jet was failing.

But he could at least take one of these bastards with him.

He eyed his back radar and mapped out his strategy. He reached out and yanked a lever for the emergency shutoff for his last remaining engine on the right side. With all the power directed toward the left, the jet made an otherwise impossible spin in midair, the now dead right side dipping drastically. With no time to react, Clint's left wing smashed into the wing of one of the enemy jets, shattering it and sending the aircraft spiraling away.

Unfortunately, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The Quinjet spun out violently as it fell like dead weight out of the sky, and there was nothing that Clint could do at that point but brace for impact.

The jet hit the water at a sideways angle, and Clint was thrown so hard against his harness that he could almost hear bones cracking. Air was ripped from his lungs and for a long moment all he knew was crushing pain. This, his ingrained survival instincts kicked in. He jerked his sidearm out and fired several shots into the windshield as he unhooked his harness with his other hand. The jet was angled back and to one side as the water began to drag it down. Clint grabbed a lifevest from under his seat and then he launched himself up and out of the broken windshield, ignoring the bite of the glass that still clung to the opening.

Clint barely had time to gasp in a shallow breath clean air before the jet was swallowed by the ocean, creating a powerful downcurrent that immediately sucked Clint underwater. It was like the water itself had forcibly grabbed him and was dragging him viciously down to it's depths.

Instincts screamed at him to claw his way back up to the service, but after a moment Clint managed to regain his wits. Instead, he kicked and pumped his arms as hard as he could to propel himself horizontally away from the current. After what seemed like an eternity, he downward pressure finally vanished as he made it out of the downcurrent.

He blindly felt the lifevest that he had miraculously managed to hold onto. His hand finally grasped the tab and he pulled it, triggering the automatic inflating mechanism. As the vest inflated he was pulled back up to the surface, and as he burst through he gasped in wheezing, desperate breaths.

His lungs were still screaming as he desperately wheezed in air when the water around him suddenly seemed to explode. He looked around frantically as several more pockets of water seemed to spontaneously combust around him. Finally his eyes when to the sky, and spotted the other enemy jet rocketing by over him, firing down at him. He watched the craft bank sharply to come back around, and he was forced to let go of the precious lifevest — it was bright yellow and might as well have a target painted on it — as he took as deep a breath as he could manage and ducked back down under the unforgiving ocean.

Bullets tore through the water around him, and all he could do was hold his breath and hope that none would find purchase. His lungs were on fire, but he forced himself to stay under until he was on the verge of passing out before he finally kicked his way back upward, breaking the surface and was immediately consumed by an agonizing coughing fit that tore through his chest.

Finally, the panic of oxygen deprivation began to wane and he was able to take in his surroundings. He immediately searched the sky, and was unbelievably relieved to find that it was empty of enemy aircraft. With any luck, they would just assume that he was dead.

He shifted his gaze back down to the water and could have cried with relief when he was able to spot a glimpse of yellow bobbing on the surface a short distance away. Clint flexed his protesting muscles as he carefully swam the distance, reaching out several times for the vest, only to have the waves pull it just out of reach. He groaned in frustration, and then used the last of his energy to lunge forward and finally grasped the lifevest.

Clint didn't bother even attempting to put the vest on, insteady just threading his arms through it and hugging it to his chest. He knew that it wasn't protocol, he knew that if he were to lose consciousness the vest would easily slip away, but he just couldn't find the energy.

Then he took stop of the rest of his body. His throat and lungs felt like sandpaper as he heaved in painful breaths. Every muscle in his body felt like it was on fire, a fire that was burning down to his bones. His gaze looked down and finally spotted the gashes on his arms from the broken windshield of the jet. He stared vacantly at the dark red water that floated around his arms, slow to comprehend what that meant.

He glanced around at the dark ocean water, squinting as if he could force himself to see past the surface to what might be lurking underneath. If he went through all of that, only to be eaten by a shark, he was going to be pissed.

And then, all he could do was wait. He knew likely a couple miles at least from shore, and there was no way that he'd be able to make that swim in his state. The team had to have a general idea of where he went down, and he knew they'd be coming for him. They had to be coming for him. Right? Unless the battle had gotten the best of them. What if they hadn't survived without Clint providing air support?

He wasn't sure how long he was left there to float aimlessly in the vast ocean, but tremors were beginning to overtake his body, painfully cramping his muscles, when the sound of an approaching jet registered in his foggy brain. He couldn't help but tense, remembering the enemy jet that had fired on him. He honestly wasn't sure that he'd be able to hold his breath long enough to fool them again.

But as the jet approached, he recognized the Quinjet model and the relief that swept through him almost caused him to pass out. He was barely able to keep a grip on the lifevest as he tracked the jet. For a moment, it looked like it wasn't going to pass over him, but then it banked back around and came to a hovering stop overhead.

Clint watched blearily as a hatch opened and a figure was lowered down to him. It took longer than it should have for him to recognize Steve.

"Clint!" Steve called over the drone of the jet.

Clint didn't have it in him to response, so he tried to communicate his appreciation in his gaze as he watched as Steve was lowered into the water just a short way from him. Steve made quick work of the distance.

"It's okay, Clint, I got you!"

Steve worked quickly and efficiently as he hooked Clint into a harness that was attached to the same line that Steve's harness was on. As he finished, Steve raised an arm and waved up at the jet. Then he wrapped his arms around Clint and pulled him close in order to support him and take as much pressure off of the harness as he could as the line was retracted and they were both lifted out of the ocean and up into the air.

"Clint, are you okay?" Natasha gasped even as she helped haul Clint up into the safety of the jet.

Clint coughed raggedly as he braced his hands on the floor of the jet, just marveling at how solid and dry and still that it was.

"That… really… sucked," Clint wheezed.

A warm blanket was wrapped securely around his shoulders. Natasha knelt in front of him and Clint rested his forehead on her shoulder, taking comfort in her familiar, calming presence.

"It's okay," Natasha assured him. "We've got you. Everything's okay now."


	29. Numb

**Author's Note:**Thank you so much **GloriousPurpose12** and **GoodCharlotte615** for reviewing the last chapter! You are both rock stars! :)

* * *

**Numb**

"We need med evac now, right now!"

"_Hawk, where are you, what's the situation?" _Steve asked frantically.

"I… we're…" Clint ran a hand across his forehead, completely unaware that he left a smear of blood. Natasha's blood. He replaced the hand with his other one, leaning forward to add more pressure to the bleeding wound. "Nat… Romanoff's been shot!"

"_Barton, where are you?" _Steve demanded.

"_I got them," _Tony said.

Clint let out a relieved breath. Honestly, he wasn't sure that he could organize his thoughts long enough to be able to effectively communicate their location.

Just a minute later, Iron Man landed hard a short distance away, quickly running over to where Clint knelt over Natasha, his hands pressed firmly against the left side of her chest, blood seeping between his fingers.

"What happened?" Tony asked.

"She… she got shot, she got shot!" Clint snapped. "She needs a hospital. Now."

"I can't carry both of you," Tony said quickly as the suit kneeled down on the other side of Natasha. "Do you have anything to wrap it with? Stem the bleeding while I get her to a hospital?"

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that," Clint muttered.

He removed his blood soaked hands from Natasha's gunshot wound and quickly went to work tearing off the long sleeve of his uniform that protected his right arm. He tore the material into strips, packing the wound and the wrapping several strips diagonally across her shoulder to hold the makeshift bandages in place.

"Okay," Clint said as he leaned back.

"Okay, I got her," Tony said as he leaned down and scooped up her limp body up into his arms. He took a step away from Clint and then he was gone in a whir of repulsor blasts.

And Clint was left alone, kneeling in the forest, streaked with Natasha's blood and staring vacantly in the direction Tony had gone, even after he was long gone.

He knew that he should get up, he knew that there was still a mission to accomplish. But for some reason, he couldn't really remember what it was. He looked down at his hands. The red seemed so bright against his skin. And his hands were shaking. That was strange, usually his hands were surgically steady.

Natasha hadn't screamed. There hadn't been any reaction at all. The bullet had torn through her and she had immediately collapsed. Clint had taken out her attacker with one well placed arrow, but when he rushed to Natasha's side her eyes were closed and her pallor was deathly pale. He had immediately put his hands to her wound, he hadn't even been able to bring himself to check her pulse.

Was she even still alive?

"Clint?" He looked up and furrowed his brow in confusion as he saw Bruce Banner approaching. Bruce reached one hand up to his ear. "I found him. I'll meet you back at the jet."

Clint blinked. "Bruce?"

"You weren't answering your comm.," Bruce said, crouching down next to him and looking at him in concern. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Clint looked down at his hands again. So much blood. But none of it was his. He was fine. He wasn't the one who was hurt.

"Is she…" Clint whispered, but couldn't bring himself to finish the question. Maybe he didn't want to know.

After all… after losing Phil a year ago, how was he supposed to handle losing the next most important person in his life?

"Tony got Natasha to the hospital," Bruce assured him in a low, comforting tone. "They are working on stabilizing her so that they can take her into surgery."

It took Clint a long moment to really comprehend what Bruce was saying. If they were stabilizing her in order to take her into surgery, that meant they were still trying to save her. It meant that she was still alive.

Natasha was still alive.

Clint was up on his feet so quickly that the world tilted dangerously around him. Bruce was suddenly next to him, putting a careful hand on Clint's arm to help steady him. Clint looked around, trying to get his bearings.

"I need to get to the jet, I need to get to that hospital," Clint said quickly. He could already feel the guilt gnawing at him that he hadn't gone to the hospital to be with her right away.

"Okay, take it easy," Bruce said. "She's in the best care possible right now. C'mon, the jet is this way."

Despite the assurances, Clint hurried through the forest. Usually he had almost inhuman balance, but for some reason he found himself tripping and stumbling over roots and undergrowth as they went. Finally, they came out in the clearing where Clint vaguely remembered landing the Quinjet hours earlier.

Steve came down the ramp of the jet to meet them as they approached. His eyes widened in surprise as he looked at Clint.

"Clint?" Steve said, a little unsteadily. "Are you okay?"

Why did people keep asking that? He wasn't the one who was fighting for their life, he wasn't the one who might be dying in the hospital right now. He didn't bother wasting any energy on answering that question, instead he walked right by Steve and up the ramp into the jet.

"Hey!" Clint turned from the cockpit to see Bruce hurrying up behind him. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to fly right now."

Clint just stared blankly for a moment. "What?"

"Clint, I think you're in shock," Bruce said. "Why don't you let Steve pilot?"

"I'm fine," Clint said, but even he could tell that his voice sounded strangely detached.

"I can fly," Steve said, coming up behind Bruce, looking at Clint with sympathy. "That way you can… clean up before we get to the hospital."

"Clean up?" Clint echoed. It wouldn't take him the whole flight to simply wash his hands.

"C'mon," Bruce urged as he put a hand on Clint's shoulder and gently led him back out of the cockpit. "I'll help you."

Bruce helped Clint sit in one of the seats in the back as Steve started up the jet. As Bruce disappeared, Clint leaned his head back and closed his eyes. But as soon as his eyes shut…

"_You lack conviction." _

Clint's eyes sprung open and he gasped for breath. The image of Phil Coulson, dying but still defiant was burned into his mind's eye. Clint had demanded to watch the scene on the security tapes days after his mentor and friend had passed, and had done so against the advice of everyone who knew him. Which at that point had pretty much been whittled down to Fury and Natasha.

Clint leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him as he struggled to regulate his breath. It was still so painful to even think about Phil. Clint still woke up some days and didn't remember that he was gone, having to go through the agony of realizing it all over again.

"Clint?"

"What if she dies?" The words were barely a whisper, spoken without the conscious decision to do so. "What if I lose her too?"

A hand appeared on his shoulder and Clint mechanically turned his head to find that Bruce had taken the seat next to him.

"I can't promise anything," Bruce admitted softly. "But what I do know is that Natasha is a fighter. If there's any way to get through this, she will find it."

But that wasn't comforting to Clint in that moment. "Phil was a fighter too."

There was a heavy silence.

"Phil Coulson was your handler at SHIELD?" Bruce asked tentatively.

Clint nodded. "He was more than that. He recruited me. Took me in off the streets, took me off the bad path that I was on, and gave me a new start at life. He gave me a purpose for the first time in my life. He's been the most stable person in my life since I was eighteen."

There was another weighted silence before Bruce figured out what to say to that.

"I had no idea," Bruce said quietly. "Does anyone else know?"

"Just Nat," Clint said, and his voice cracked painfully just trying to say her name.

"Did you ever take any time to grieve for him?" Bruce asked carefully.

Clint was silent. Bruce already knew the answer to that. After the battle of New York, the Avengers had almost immediately taken over Stark Tower as their new home base. Avengers mission had begun barely more than a month after the Chitauri invasion and, in addition to working with this new team, Clint and Natasha still worked their own SHIELD missions. The fact that Clint and Natasha were pulling double duty since New York was often a topic of discussion with the Avengers, Steve always worried about the two of them trying to take on too much.

"Maybe this is less about Natasha and more about Phil," Bruce suggested carefully.

He had a point. In their years as Strike Team Delta, Clint had long ago lost count of how many serious injuries Natasha had endured, had lost track of how many times she had almost died. Hell, this wasn't even the worst injury that Clint would watch her recover from. And yet, he had never fallen apart like this before.

"I think you should take some time off," Bruce went on. "Natasha is likely going to have a lengthy recovery and you could keep her company. Take a break from missions for a while. Take some time and allow yourself to grieve for your friend."

Clint swallowed thickly. He finally lifted his head and looked over at Bruce. "Thanks," he said roughly.

"Anytime," Bruce said with a comforting smile. "We should be landing soon. So let's get that blood off your face so you don't terrify the hospital staff."


	30. Recovery

**Author's**** Note:** Home stretch! Can't believe I'm almost done! Thank you **Lesfont25**, **GloriousPurpose12**, and **GoodCharlotte615** for reviewing the last chapter! You guys are awesome!

* * *

**Recovery**

"Son of a bitch," Natasha sighed wearily.

Just to be sure, she pushed open the door to the private infirmary room, but it revealed what she had already deduced from looking through the window. The room was empty. She honestly wasn't that surprised, but she was incredibly annoyed. She turned back to the keypad next to the door and found that the face had been pried off the wall and several of the wires had been pulled.

She stalked back out of the room and down the hall to the elevator. She hit the button impatiently three times, waited a few seconds and then hit it again. Finally the elevator arrived. She stepped in, tapping her foot and crossing her arms tightly over her chest as the elevator took her up to the common floor of Avengers Tower.

Steve, Tony and Bruce were all gathered around the kitchen, apparently having just finished lunch.

"Stark!" Natasha snapped as she strode across the room. Tony flinched and turned as she approached. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on Clint?"

"I told you she was going to be mad," Bruce told Tony lowly.

"Calm down, Fatale," Tony said, putting out a placating hand. "He was dead asleep so I figured I'd grab some lunch. He's in good hands, his door is alarmed and JARVIS will notify me if he tries to go anywhere. Trust me, he's still safe and sound down in the infirmary."

"Trust you," Natasha said with a glare, crossing her arms over her chest. "Then please explain to me why I just came from his _empty _infirmary room."

There was a beat of complete silence as three sets of eyes stared at her in disbelief.

"That's impossible," Tony said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his tone. "JARVIS." Silence. Which was unnerving, considering JARVIS had never once not answered Tony. That point was underlined by the astonished look on Tony's face as he looked up and around as if he would be able to spot JARVIS somewhere above them. "JARVIS?" He pulled his StarkPhone from his back pocket and started thumbing around the touchscreen. "What the hell…?"

"Did Barton disable JARVIS?" Steve asked in surprise.

"No, no that's impossible, totally and completely impossible," Tony mumbled as he stared down at his phone. "There isn't even an access point to JARVIS' mainframe down in the infirmary, it can only be accessed from my workshop. And anyway, I would have been alerted in JARVIS went offline. Unless…" He paused and his eyes widened. "Sonofabitch."

"What?" Bruce said curiously, coming up to look over Tony's shoulder.

"He used the StarkPad I left him and somehow managed to override the volume for JARVIS' sound system." He paused and hit a few buttons. "JARVIS?"

"I am here, Mr. Stark," came JARVIS' calm voice, and Natasha didn't miss the way that Tony's muscles relaxed at the sound.

"I didn't know Barton knew how to hack," Tony said, sending Natasha an accusatory glare.

"You remember that he's a SHIELD Agent, right?" Natasha said, arching an eyebrow.

"But why would a sniper need to know how to hack?" Tony insisted.

"He's more than just a sniper," she said with an exasperated sigh.

"But I thought the door was also alarmed," Steve said.

"He disabled that through the keypad," Natasha said.

"With only one working arm?" Tony demanded.

"SHIELD Agent!" Natasha snapped. "Clint has broken out of much more secure places with much worse injuries."

"Okay, but shouldn't we be looking for Clint?" Bruce spoke up tentatively.

"I can have JARVIS scan the building," Tony started.

"Don't bother, I know where he went," Natasha said, waving her hand dismissively as she spun on her heels and headed back for the elevator. "I just wanted Stark to know how incredibly thick headed it is to underestimate Clint."

By the time she stepped into the elevator, all three of the men had joined her. She shot them a questioning look.

"Well, I need to see how this turns out," Tony said with a shrug. "I'm technically supposed to be watching him, after all.

"And I'm here in case he needs medical help," Bruce said.

Steve glanced from Tony to Bruce and then looked at Natasha sheepishly. "I'm just curious."

Natasha rolled her eyes but jabbed the button for the floor that she wanted. No one spoke as the elevator steadily rose through the floors of the Tower. After a few minutes of awkward silence, the elevator finally stopped and the doors opened.

"Really?" Tony said in disbelief. "Why would he come here?"

"It's comforting," Natasha said as she stepped off the elevator and onto the floor that housed the Tower's shooting range.

Tony, Bruce and Steve trooped awkwardly behind Natasha. She sent a glare over her shoulder at them when she stepped into the range, and they took the hint and stopped in the doorway, allowing her to enter the range alone.

The range was quiet as Natasha walked down the row of stalls, glancing into each one as she went, though she knew which stall he would be in. As she had expected, as she got to the last stall in the row, she finally saw Clint sitting on the ground, leaning heavily against the wall and his head turned downrange. His bow lay next to him and his quiver was tipped over with arrows scattered around the area.

"You didn't seriously think you were going to be able to use your bow in your condition, did you?" Natasha said, eyeing the thick wad of bandages that encased Clint's shoulder and the sling that strapped his arm across his chest in order to immobilize it.

Clint looked up at her with tired eyes. "No," he admitted. "I just… miss it."

"I know," Natasha said with a sympathetic sigh as she crouched down next to him. She knew that his bow was more than just a weapon for him, it was also something he found comfort in. "It's only been a few days since you shattered your collarbone, though. You need to take it easy and heal so that you can fire that bow again."

"_If_ I can fire my bow again," Clint mumbled.

"You'll get there," Natasha promised him. "It's going to take some work and it won't be easy, but I know for a fact you'll get there. Now, c'mon. You know you're not supposed to be out of the infirmary."

"Yeah, yeah," Clint sighed.

Natasha ducked under Clint's uninjured arm and helped carefully lever him to his feet. He swayed unsteadily for a moment, but regained himself quickly.

"You know, you got me in trouble." They both turned their heads to see that Tony had approached. "Your scarier half tore me down good over your little field trip."

Clint smirked. "You're the one who left your post."

Tony rolled his eyes as the three of them started moving back down the row of stalls, Clint still leaning on Natasha and Tony falling in on his other side and placing a hand on Clint's back for balance.

"We also need to talk about your little hacking spree," Tony went on conversationally with a sideways glare, though there was an amused smirk playing at his lips. "That is just not cool messing with a man's best AI friend."


	31. Embrace

**Author's Note:** Thank you so much to **GoodCharlotte615**, **GloriousPurpose12**, **Lesfont25**, **Katie MacAlpine**, and **anaticulapraecantrix **for reviewing the last chapter and also for ALL your support throughout this story! I can't even put into words how much I appreciate you guys! You all are the BEST!

* * *

**Embrace**

"We'll be wheels down in twenty, Agent Coulson."

"Thanks, Avery," Phil said with a tense nod.

Phil took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for what was going to happen next. But he didn't even know how to start doing that. It had taken him months to strangle any hope that he felt, to force himself to accept what had happened and finally acknowledge that there wasn't anything he could do about it to change the indisputable facts.

Months of sleepless nights. Months of walking around in a fog, barely aware of what was going on around him. Months of anger followed by crushing depression followed by uncontrollable rage before starting the cycle all over again.

It had almost completely destroyed him in order to accept that Clint Barton was gone. Only to find out that he wasn't.

It was a mission that had gone to shit. That wasn't anything that either of them were unfamiliar with, in fact more often than not the kind of missions they were given these days tended to go off the rails. This one had been especially bad. Phil had been out in the field with Clint providing backup when they had been separated. Phil had left the warehouse that they had been trying to infiltrate before being ambushed, thinking that they should fallback and regroup. He had tried to reach Clint over their comms., but there had been some sort of strange interference.

And then the warehouse had exploded.

Phil had only barely been clear of the warehouse and the explosion had enough force to send him flying through the air. After that, his memory gets fuzzy. He knows he looked for Clint, but he doesn't know for how long or how thorough he had been. He had eventually returned to the safehouse — nursing several second degree burns — hoping that maybe Clint had as well, but had found it to be painfully empty. Backup had been called, several teams had been sent out in search of Clint… but after weeks of desperately searching, there was no evidence that he had survived the explosion.

Five weeks after the explosion, Fury had been forced to declare that Clint Barton had been killed in action. And Phil had been completely consumed by his grief.

And then, almost five months after the explosion, a Strike Team had intercepted intel that a drug cartel was holding a SHIELD agent prisoner. It was a faction of the overall crime syndicate that Phil and Clint had been after that fateful day, but Phil hadn't dared to hope. And then, the team had discovered the name of the prisoner being held.

_Clint Barton is alive. _

The message had come through in the middle of the night in New York, but Phil had still been awake. He had immediately organized a team to take him down to Brazil where the Strike Team was stationed. He'd never made it in time for the rescue mission, but Phil had to be there when Clint was brought back. _If _he was brought back.

Phil took a deep, unsteady breath as the jet touched down. He wanted so badly to believe that Clint was indeed still alive and that the team would be able to rescue him, but he honestly wasn't sure if he'd be able to survive having to go through that grief all over again.

"Have we heard from the Strike Team?" Phil asked.

"Not since they entered the compound and went to radio silence," Avery told him. "That was about two hours ago."

Phil nodded, feeling numb. The mission should have been an hour at most. It wasn't a good sign that they hadn't heard anything in two hours. He took in another deep breath, feeling a sharp pain as he struggled to fill his lungs.

At the very least, they would hopefully be able to bring Clint's body home. That way they could give him a proper burial to go with the memorial.

"Agent Coulson?" Phil looked up to see Avery looking at him with concern.

"Let's get to the safehouse," Phil said, his voice sounding strangely strangled.

* * *

Three and a half hours. The mission to infiltrate the compound took the Strike Team three and a half hours. Phil spent the time pacing the safehouse, checking the intel, pacing some more, checking the comms. for messages, more pacing…

Damnit, was it hot in here? Was the air getting thicker and harder to breath?

The beeping on the palm reader at the front door caused Phil to stop in his tracks. This was it. This would be the moment he was going to either find salvation or be destroyed all over again.

The Strike Team had consisted of four agents. The first two entered the safe house, one limping and the other bracing his side carefully, both looking a bit ragged. The second to followed closely behind them… with a figure supported between them.

Phil felt rooted to the spot as he stared. Clint hung between the two with an arm thrown over the shoulder of each agent. He was pale, painfully thin, barely conscious… but he was _alive_. Phil should shouting, he should be running toward him, he should be celebrating… but his brain was completely blank. He felt detached from his own body as the agents carried a half stumbling Clint over to the side of the safehouse with the cots.

"Clint," Phil breathed softly. He took a step. Then another. "Clint." His throat was raw and he choked on Clint's name and he stumbled as he continued moving. Was this really happening? Could he have really done something in his life to deserve this miracle? "Oh my god, Clint!"

The agents had sat Clint on the cot, propped up against the wall. As Phil approached, they quickly made room for him so that he could perch sideways on the cot with one leg folded underneath him. He wanted to reach for Clint, to pull him close and never let go, but force of habit stilled his hand, knowing that Clint normally rejected physical contact.

"Clint?" Phil said softly.

Slowly and seemingly with a great amount of effort, Clint dragged his head up. He blinked a few times before he managed to focus on Phil. He stared for a long moment before his expression twisted painfully.

"Ph'l?"

Phil desperately looked for some obvious injury that was causing the pain of Clint's face. The question '_are you okay_' died on his lips, as it seemed wildly inadequate for the situation. Of course Clint wasn't okay, not after almost five months of captivity.

And then a hand — trembles and cakes in dirt and dried blood — reached for Phil. "I… I th-thought…" Clint took in a rattling breath and Phil was taken aback to see a reflection of his own devastating grief reflected in Clint's eyes. "...Th-thou— you were… you were de-dead…"

It was too much. The pain of it all ripped through Phil as if he had been violently gutted. He reached out and carefully took Clint's hand. It felt so terribly thin and fragile in his hand.

"I thought _you _were," Phil said softly, his voice cracking. He tried to blink back the tears, but it was useless.

And then, Clint was reaching around with his other hand, leaning toward Phil. Clint Barton, who never sought out physical contact, who was too scarred from an abusive childhood to find solace in another person, was reaching out toward Phil in order to seek comfort.

Phil pushed himself more fully on the cot and carefully wrapped his arms around Clint, pulling him in close. Clint leaned into him and weakly gripped the front of Phil's shirt as if he were afraid that if he let go Phil would disappear. He took in several shuddering, sobbing breaths and Phil had no doubt that if he wasn't terribly dehydrated he would be crying.

"It's okay," Phil soothed softly, letting his own tears fall for the both of them. "It's okay, Clint. I've got you and I'm not going anywhere. Everything's okay now. We're going to take you home."

* * *

**Author's Note:** And there we have it! Thirty-One prompts completed! And only seven days passed the end date for the event, haha. Thank you again for anyone who followed along with this crazy ride! As I mentioned in the beginning, I was in a pretty big slump with my writing and I feel like this was a great way to get back into the groove on things!

I know a lot of you are bummed that this has come to an end... but I am excited to start working on my other projects again! I've been working on an Avengers High School AU story as well as the sequel to my Clint Barton origin story, Out of the Ashes, and I'm hoping to finally make enough progress with those to be able to start posting! I always like to have a few chapters of a novel length story done first before starting to post. Fingers crossed I can keep up my momentum!

Thank you all again! Until next time!


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